Foreigner releases unreleased song “Turning Back the Time”

“Foreigner” gets nostalgic and reflective in his first new song in eight years, a track from the band’s archives.

Just in time for the group’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on October 19, “Turning Back the Time” will appear on a new 18-song best-of compilation of the same name, which will be released on October 4 via Rhino.

“There are a number of songs that Lou Gramm and I wrote together that never saw the light of day,” says Foreigner founder Mick Jones Billboard“‘Turning Back the Time’ was co-written with Marti Frederiksen. Marti and I recently revisited the song and reworked it. The time that has passed has allowed us to look at it with a fresh perspective. The sentiment of the song speaks to us now more than ever and with the upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we thought it was the perfect time to share it with the world.”

The upbeat and melodic track is just under three minutes long and includes lyrics about “the time I grew up in and the path that brought me here” and how seeing the Beatles on TV “changed everything deep inside me.” It also references “the day of seeing double,” a reference to Foreigner’s second album. Particularly poignant given Jones’ battle with Parkinson’s disease, which has kept him off the stage in recent years, the chorus goes, “There’s something missing in my life, so I’m turning back time.”

The first demo of the piece was recorded in 1996, shortly after Jones and Frederiksen had recorded songs together for the 1998 film Strange fruit. The two also began writing material for Foreigner, with Gramm contributing on some of it, including “Turning Back the Time.” Jones and Frederiksen co-produced the recording earlier that year, with both playing guitar, Jones adding keyboards, Frederiksen playing bass, and his son Evan playing drums. Gramm’s vocals were on the original demo; he left the band for a second and final time in 2003.

The album’s other 17 tracks come from Foreigner’s nine studio albums, including “When It Comes to Love” with current frontman Kelly Hansen.

There is no information about future plans for any other unfinished Foreigner material that is in the archives. Jones said Billboard in May: “There are a number of songs that are demos that I wrote with Lou. A couple of them are pretty promising. There are some that I wrote with Marti that are lying around. I’ve been going through tapes of demos; some of them, in my opinion, don’t deserve to see the light of day.” Jones adds that he’s also finished mixing and mastering a solo album. Protection from the storm, which he hopes to publish “sometime soon”.

Gramm, meanwhile, has often spoken of “a whole album of songs” from the early 2000s that he and Jones wrote and recorded only in rough form. “They’re great songs… some of our very best songs,” Gramm said. Billboard Earlier this year. “There were about eight or nine. We didn’t have a record company at the time, so we were waiting to see what happened. Then Mick and I had a big falling out and I left the band… Now Mick has the copy and I haven’t and I don’t know if he’ll ever do anything with it. I kind of doubt it, but I’d like to at least listen to those rough cuts we did. They were great ideas.”

Meanwhile, Jones, Gramm and their former bandmates are preparing for Rock Hall induction, one of the most eagerly awaited since Foreigner was long considered one of the band’s biggest losers. Producer Mark Ronson, Jones’ son-in-law, has put together a video campaign in which Rock Hall members such as Paul McCartney, Slash, Dave Grohl, Slash and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers express their disbelief that the group has not yet been inducted.

“It was the same every year, so at some point I stopped worrying about it,” Jones said Billboard earlier this year. “I certainly wasn’t overly taken with it… I’ve had a great career and this is like the icing on the cake.”

The Rock Hall induction ceremony will be streamed live from Cleveland via Disney+, with an abbreviated special broadcast planned for ABC later in the year.

The complete track list for Turn back time: