Trying to identify this song from 1986

[Yolti]

Can anyone help identify this song and artists? All I know is

• It was definitely from Spring of 1986.
• It was played a lot then so may possibly have been a chart hit.
• It was in a major key and fairly monotonous but pleasant throughout the song.
• A male was singing but there was a female(?) singing a different melody in the background all through it.

I can only make out some of its words on a cassette recording, which are:

• ...... brain drain gang ......
• ...... don't know all the words of the part that I'm living ......
• ...... I know I can(t) make it ......
• ...... it took me 17 years ......
• ...... I think that I could stop and die ...... (at the end of each verse)

I'll be forever in your debt if you can correctly identify it!!