Enjoy the Silence

When Alan Wilder first heard the demo of "Enjoy the Silence", the lyric "All I ever wanted" played in his head in the voice of Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. The demo, written by Martin Gore and performed alone on a harmonium, was a quiet ballad, but Wilder thought it could work as an up-tempo dance track. Gore resisted the idea, arguing that a song about serenity did not belong with a disco beat, and the singer Dave Gahan later recalled that Wilder and co-producer Flood told him, Gore and Andy Fletcher to go away while they experimented.

Gore sulked for two days. When Wilder and Flood were ready, they brought the songwriter back in to record a guitar riff, and once that was down, Gahan sang the lyrics and was surprised, by his own admission, at how well it went. Fletcher said the whole thing came together in about an hour and called it one of the most magical moments he had experienced with the band. The band then spent a week trying to improve on it before concluding that the first day's version had been the best.

Released by Mute Records on 5 February 1990 as the second single from Violator, "Enjoy the Silence" reached number six in the UK within a week and peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's highest chart position in the United States. It won Best British Single at the Brit Awards in 1991.