Feel No Pain

"Feel No Pain" is a song by English band Sade from their fourth studio album, Love Deluxe (1992). It was released as the album's second single on 16 November 1992, as the follow-up to "No Ordinary Love", and peaked at number 56 on the UK Singles Chart. Critical reception Larry Flick from Billboard complimented "Feel No Pain" as a "luscious slow jam" and "by far, the album's most accessible cut." He explained, "A creative shuffle beat is embellished with subtle and bluesy guitar picking and steamy keyboard passages. Of course, Sade's unique voice is the focal point at all times." Andrew Smith from Melody Maker said, "Sade fashions a polite modern soul, sterile and stripped of ambiguity." A reviewer from Music & Media wrote, "Laid back but nonetheless driven, the second single from the Love Deluxe album is not completely painless, because the repetitive bass pattern makes you tap your feet until they hurt, especially through Nellee Hooper's dance remix." Retrospective response In an 2017 retrospective review, Justin Chadwick from Albumism described the song as a "percussive" and "compassionate call-to-arms that reminds us to treat the poverty-stricken with the dignity and decency they deserve, while encouraging us to do what we can to ease people's suffering in times of financial turmoil and family upheaval." In 2010, the Daily Vault's Mark Millan said that it "comes off as a cool, breezy, and somewhat groovy funk song." He also noted "the icy vocals [that] are in complete contrast with the club-ready, slow-burning track." Frank Guan from Vulture wrote, "All Sade songs are socially engaged at some level, but of the ones that directly reference politics, this is one of the best. Instead of telling the story of a black family trapped by layoffs, poverty, unemployment, and hatred from the third-person, Sade locates herself within its daughter as a first-person narrator. Her intimation that a society that refuses to support its least fortunate members will end in ruin for all doesn't come off as a sermon, but an experience deeply lived. The supporting cast turns in one of its best performances, evoking a spirit at once buoyant, concerned, and trapped."