Working With Fire and Steel

Working with Fire and Steel – Possible Pop Songs Volume Two is the second studio album by the English new wave and synth-pop band China Crisis, released on 31 October 1983 by Virgin Records. The album spent 16 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at No. 20 in February 1984. It includes the song "Wishful Thinking", which was a top-ten hit on the UK Singles Chart. The songs "Wishful Thinking" and "Here Come a Raincloud" (then called "Watching the Rainclouds") were premiered on a BBC John Peel session in January 1983, along with "A Golden Handshake for Every Daughter", which was not included on the album but released as the B-side of the single "Tragedy and Mystery" in May. The album was recorded at Amazon Studios, Liverpool and The Manor Studio, Oxfordshire in 1983. Some of the songs had been written around the same time as the songs on the band's debut studio album, Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms, Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain (1982). The band also recorded the song "It's Never Too Late" during the sessions for the album, but it was dropped due to its similarity to "Wishful Thinking" and was later released on a limited edition 12" single of "Black Man Ray".