CULTURE |

MUSIC & BROADCAST

INTERVIEW

Theirbest-lovedsongtellsofamanwhofinds

meaninginhislifebypushingacouncildustcart

throughthestreets,drivenbythedreamofsaving

hismoneytobuyadinghy,whichhe’llsailupthe

westcoastofScotland,throughvillages

andtowns.

Sinceitsreleasein1987,DeaconBlue’santhem

fortheworkingman,Dignity,hasbecomepublic

property,a sharedmetaphorofhope.Yetasthe

t’sbeen 30 yearssince

DeaconBlueheadlined

Scotland’sbiggestgig.

FrontmanRickyRossgot

angryonstagethatday,

andtellsPaulEnglish

thatnowhe’smore

comfortablewith

thepersonalthan

I thepolitical

about their group’s new record 33 years later – and six weeks after

Scotland returned 48 SNP MPs to Westminster – we’re considering

the political prescience of another of his band’s hit singles. “The line

that still really resonates is the line ‘first we speak for ourselves now’,”

says songwriter and frontman Ricky Ross of their 1992 hit Your Town,

a howl of anger and optimism in response to Margaret Thatcher’s

11-year premiership (which had finally ended two years earlier) and

the burgeoning sense of Scotland wanting to take greater control of

its own affairs.

“That’s something that has actually happened, that

has become the truth. And we do it in ‘pictures and songs

and words’.”

“It’s a song which still seems alive to me,” agrees wife Lorraine

McIntosh, Ross’s co-singer in the multimillion-selling band. “Every time

we do it live, I never feel I have to dig down too deep.”

Deacon Blue formed in 1985, a year when, thanks to Live Aid, millions

were alive to the notion of music’s transformational power. Their early

political leanings were as hard to miss as McIntosh’s sirening vocals on

their 1988 breakthrough hit Real Gone Kid.

By the time Glasgow had been anointed as Britain’s first European

City of Culture in 1990, they ’d played gigs at CND rallies and Aids

fundraisers, and would soon be at the centre of a collective of cultural

players, including literary titans William Mcllvanney, Edwin Morgan and

Alasdair Gray, in the pressure group Artists for Scottish Independence.

Both Ross and McIntosh have remained high-profile supporters of the

causeeversince.

Atthecentrepieceofthecity ’sculturalcelebrationsthatyear

wasthelargestfreemusicconcerteverheldinScotland.TheBig

Growing older with dignity
Deacon Blue are still gracefully
fighting the good fight

34 | BIGISSUE.COM 02 -08 MARCH 2020