RAINTOWN
1987
Bad work and bad weather
Pop as social commentary,
with Deacon Blue refl ecting
the struggles of ordinary folk
in Thatcher’s Britain – and
particularly their home city of
Glasgow – on the likes of Born
In A Storm and Town To Be
Blamed, while proffering hope
on Dignity and The Very Thing.
“It’s about work, not
good work, and weather
compounding that and
things bringing you down,”
explained Ross.
“Everyone was going on
about unemployment at the
time, but there were also a lot
of people unhappy with the
work they were in.”
The predominantly gloomy
tenor of the songs is brilliantly
captured by Oscar Marzaroli’s
iconic cover image of a rainy
day in Glasgow’s West End.
Raintown went on to sell
more than a million copies.
WHEN THE WORLD
KNOWS YOUR NAME
1989
Bigger than MadonnaDeacon Blue’s second album
remains their only No.1,
knocking Madonna’s Like A
Prayer off top spot in 1989.
Brilliantly crafted, with an
eye fi rmly on the prize of
commercial triumph, it includes
no fewer than fi ve hit singles,
among them their fi rst Top 10
hit, Real Gone Kid, as well as
Wages Day and Fergus Sings
The Blues.
Ross remains the fulcrum, but
McIntosh is integral to When
The World Knows Your Name,
impelling Deacon Blue into the
big time.
As Mat Snow succinctly
summed it up in his Q
magazine review, she “adroitly
feminises the band’s texture and
so saves us on more than one
occasion from being fl attened
by an excess of overwrought
macho breast-beating.”FELLOW HOODLUMS
1991
Going organicPeaking at No.2 in the UK,
Fellow Hoodlums is a more
organic collection of songs than
its predecessor, embodied by
its second single (and Deacon
Blue’s second Top 10 hit), Twist
And Shout. Not to be confused
with the song made famous by
The Top Notes, The Isley Brothers
and, of course, The Beatles, it
fuses pop with Cajun zydeco.
Ross and McIntosh are in
sparkling form once again,
particularly on One Day I’ll Go
Walking, while McIntosh also
gets a solo spot on the sublime
Cover From The Sky.
Elsewhere, there’s much to
admire in the weirdly wonderful
title track, James Joyce Soles
and The Day That Jackie
Jumped The Jail.
Your Swaying Arms made
No.6 in Ireland, the band’s
seventh consecutive Top 10
single there.WHATEVER YOU SAY,
SAY NOTHING
1993
Channelling BonoWhatever You Say, Say
Nothing represented a shift in
musical direction for Deacon
Blue, as producer Jon Kelly was
replaced by the duo of Steve
Osborne and legendary trance
DJ Paul Oakenfold.
Ross seems to have traded his
inner Boss for his inner Bono,
especially on the histrionic
Bethlehem’s Gate and All Over
The World.
And while the songs
sometimes become submerged
in the mix, you have to admire
Ross’ chutzpah, though if the
album was a calculated attempt
to break America, that attempt
failed miserably (it didn’t even
chart over there).
The Brits were still on board –
just about – sending it to No.4.
Hang Your Head was the best
performing single, reaching a
respectable No.21.THE MUST-HAVE ALBUMS
DEACON BLUE THE LOWDOWNAND THE REST...
HOMESICK
2001
Having reconvened
in 1999, after a
fi ve-year sabbatical,
Deacon Blue Mk II’s fi rst proper
album picks up where Fellow
Hoodlums left off. Gone was the
wannabe stadium rock fl ouncing
about that characterised Whatever
You Say..., as Ross and company
eschewed studio gimmickry for song
craft – which is where they came in,
after all.
Among the sonic reference points
are Steely Dan, whose Do It Again
is sampled on Silverlake, The Beach
Boys (A Is For Astronaut) and Burt
Bacharach (Rae).
Homesick was the fi nal Deacon
Blue album to feature the mercurial
playing of guitarist Graeme Kelling,
who died in 2004, after a lengthy
battle against pancreatic cancer.BELIEVERS
2016
Ross has never
shirked his artistic
responsibility to
explore the big questions – just
because said exploration is
undertaken within a popular medium
doesn’t make it any less valid.
And so, on Believers, he embarks
on “the journey we all take into
the dark”, the point in all our lives
where, “whatever you’ve been told,
whatever the evidence is you’ve
been presented with, you just don’t
know what the answer is.”
Deacon Blue, in seeking out the
answer here rely on the heart rather
than the head – and the sweetest
melodies emerge from the heart, as
illustrated by Birds, Come Awake
and the swoonsome instrumental
B Boy. Ross and McIntosh dovetail
beautifully, as always.A NEW HOUSE
2014
A New House,
according to Ross,
is “about our
country, Scotland, a physical sense
of a place that I’m sometimes
overwhelmed with”.
A perfectly timed paean to the
nation, too, released as it was
during the year of the Scottish
Independence Referendum.
And it’s diffi cult not to interpret the
title track as Ross’ rallying cry to his
compatriots to strike out on their
own for “A new job, a new hope,
a new start, a new way/ A new
place, a new view, a new road,
a new time”.
The album is burnished with a
real sense of optimism, in both the
words and the music, the spiritual
invocation of rich history urging a
people to remake that history.THE HIPSTERS
2012
The faithful had to
wait 11 years for
DB’s sixth LP, a gap
that could arguably be attributed
to the emotional toll exerted on the
band by Kelling’s passing.
Ross described The Hipsters as
“my love letter to Deacon Blue”, a
love profoundly expressed in what a
BBC review described as “optimistic,
sunlit, indie-fl ecked arrangements”.
Some 25 years after Raintown they
bring their age and experience to
bear on an accomplished set that is
a perfect synthesis of their artistry.
While the Daily Express bitched
that “if it was any closer to the
middle of the road, it would be run
over”, there was acknowledgement
that “the production is fl awless, the
songs good and it jogs along at a
great pace”.