#55: Walk Away by The Box

City: Regina, SK
Radio Station: CJME
Peak Month: May 1984
Peak Position in Regina ~ #8
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Walk Away”
Lyrics: “Walk Away”

The Box was formed in 1981 by former Men Without Hats keyboard player Jean-Marc Pisapia. He was born in 1957 in Montreal and learned to play piano at the age of four. He studied architecture at the University of Montreal. After a summer tour with Men Without Hats in 1981, Jean-Marc formed Checkpoint Charlie, inviting guitarist Guy Florent and bass guitarist Jean-Pierre Brie to join him. In 1983, the band added Jean-Marc’s brother, Guy Pisapia, on keyboards. This enabled Jean-Marc to give his attention primarily to lead vocals. At this time the band changed their name to The Box. In 1984 The Box released a self-titled album with a debut single titled “Walk Away”.

“Walk Away” was written by the bandmates in The Box. The song is about a typical working day for a woman who works in front of a typewriter in an office in New York City. She gets up at “six O’clock” and her “face is a mess.” The day is a series of mishaps: 1) red and white toothpaste goes down the bowl, 2) when it’s time to shower there’s “no hot water,” 3) “hot coffee” ends up in her eggs, 4) and when she gets down the stairs someone tells her “Hey lady, guess what? You’ve missed your bus!” | Once she gets to the office: 5) “You’re late! And there’s your boss. Modern world. Typewriter.” (The latter observation is ironic as typewriters were on their way out, along with the modern world which was giving way to the new post-modernism), 6) “Coffee again…in your papers,” 7) “it’s a working day, a rainy day…,” 8) “Oh! Oh! Larry Romance: “movies tonight?” (she thinks ‘Oh no, oh no’), 9) Once it’s Five O’Clock, and she gets a taxi cab in New York City she’s stuck in a traffic jam.

The bridge in the song has the subject dreaming of “an open field in October when the wind turns the sky to grey. I could stand still there in the middle of the hay,” wishing time would fade to that place. For the urban office worker with all these stressors, an escape to a field in the country seemed idyllic. The song title invites the harried office worker to “walk away.”

“Walk Away” climbed to #8 in Regina (SK), #15 in Montreal, and #19 in Ottawa.

In 1985, The Box were nominated in the Most Promising Group of the Year category at The Juno Awards. They lost out to Idle Eyes. In Quebec, they won a Felix Award for Group of the Year.

From their second album, All the Time, All the Time, All the Time, came “L’Affaire Dumoutier (Say to Me)“. It was their second release from the album. The debut release, “With All That Cash”, was a #3 hit in Edmonton (AB) on the Alternative Rock station CJSR. But it failed to chart on Top 40 radio.

The lineup for The Box on All the Time, All the Time, All the Time consisted of Claude Thibault on guitar, Jean-Pierre Brie on bass guitar and backing vocals, Philippe Bernard on drums, Guy Pisapia on keyboards and backing vocals, Jean-Marc Pisapia on rhythm guitar and lead vocals.

A third release from the album, “My Dreams Of You”, was a Top 20 hit in Montreal in 1986. In 1987 The Box released their third album, Closer Together. The title track was their debut single. “Closer Together“.

A second release from the album, “Ordinary People”, was a Top 20 hit in both Hamilton and Montreal. In 1987, The Box was again nominated for a Juno Award in the Group of the Year category. They lost out to Tom Cochrane and Red Rider. However, at the Félix Awards The Box won Anglophone Group of the Year, Anglophone Single of the Year and Video of the Year.

In the winter of 1987-88, “Crying Out Loud For Love”, was the third single from Closer Together. It also cracked the Top 20 in Hamilton and Montreal. A fourth album, The Pleasure and the Pain, was released in 1990. The lead single, “Carry On”, reached #9 in Montreal, and #11 in Ottawa. A followup single, “Temptation”, was a Top 30 hit in Hamilton.

The Box dissolved in 1992 after Jean-Marc quit the band. The lack of wider exposure had been a constant challenge. The Pleasure and The Pain was a commercial disappointment. Jean-Marc attributed this in part to the band’s position as francophones who were performing in English instead of French. This caused their fans in Quebec to turn against them in the increasingly polarized climate in the Meech Lake era. The band was also exhausted after being an opening act on a tour headlined by Sinead O’Connor. In 1995, Jean-Marc released a solo album titled John of Mark. He subsequently supported himself principally as a writer of television advertising jingles.

The Box reformed in 2002 and released Black Dog There in 2005. It was a concept album about a guy from the prairies who becomes an astronaut. In 2009, The Box released their first French-language album D’Après le horla de Maupassant.

The Box released four singles in the mid-2010s. Their most recent single, “Incredible Human Being”, was released in 2016. In 2018, the band released an EP titled Take Me Home. The Box continues to perform in concert.

June 27, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
Scott Sutherland, “The Box,” CanadianBands.com, April 11, 2022.
Aaron Badgley, “Right Out of The Box – A Conversation with Jean-Marc Pisapia of The Box,” Spill Magazine, January 22, 2020.

CJME 1300-AM Regina (SK) June 2, 1984