THE MUST-WATCH VIDEOS
“A forbidding blood red skyline, the guts of an
elevator shaft, a passenger plane speeding low
overhead like a missile – we are in the post-apocalyptic terrain of a JG Ballard novel, High Rise
or Crash. Except we’re not.”
LISTEN UP!
Your essential Deacon
Blue playlist(^1) Dignity
With hope and faith...
(^2) When Will You
(Make My Telephone Ring)
Pure blue-eyed soul.
(^3) Chocolate Girl
“She melts when he touches her”.
(^4) Real Gone Kid
Absolutely sweet Maria.
(^5) Fergus Sings The Blues
Bard Of Dundee homage.
(^6) Your Town
Smash the Iron Lady.
(^7) Wages Day
Working class heroism.
(^8) Queen Of The New Year
Unabashed romanticism.
(^9) Raintown
Hard times in Glasgow.
(^10) The Very Thing
Love, of course.
(^11) He Looks Like Spencer
Tracy Now
Inspired by an article featured in
Time magazine.
(^12) I Was Right And You
Were Wrong
Shimmering techno.
(^13) Orphans
Haunting coda to When The
World Knows Your Name.
(^14) I’ll Never Fall In
Love Again
Sublime Burt Bacharach/
Hal David cover.
(^15) Twist And Shout
Not to be confused with
The Beatles.
(^16) Cover From The Sky
Rare McIntosh solo.
(^17) Your Swaying Arms
Magnifi cent seventh Top 10 hit
in Ireland.
(^18) Love’s Great Fears
Another Raintown gem.
(^19) Loaded
A stab at Tom Waits’ Shore Leave.
(^20) Circus Lights
Coulda, shoulda been follow-up
to Real Gone Kid.
Three years on from Deacon
Blue’s last album, Believers,
there’s no sign of
another one in the
immediate future.
The band
spent
November
and December
touring the
UK and also
returned to
Spain in 2018
to play their fi rst
concerts there in
25 years. Ricky Ross
described it as “an incredible
experience for all of us”,
adding, “Spain has always
held a special place in the
story of Deacon Blue.”
It was such an
incredible
experience, that
they scheduled
another some
half a dozen
more dates
in February
and March,
including
appearances
in Madrid
and Barcelona.
Meanwhile, Ross
continues to present Another
Country With Ricky Ross, his
show on BBC Radio Scotland.
WHAT’S NEXT?
“THE SINGER
CONTINUES TO PRESENT
ANOTHER COUNTRY WITH
RICKY ROSS, HIS WEEKLY
SHOW ON BBC RADIO
SCOTLAND”
A NEW HOUSE
youtu.be/nN0TYswAjGA
Ross and McIntosh trawled
through their personal archive
for Super 8 footage to use in the
video for A New House, the track
a metaphor for a new Scotland
in those heady days before
the Independence Referendum
denied that particular aspiration.
What they unearthed was fi lm
of them both as kids.
“People probably wouldn’t
recognise that it’s us,” said
McIntosh at the time.
“There’s footage of me
climbing up a cliff in Arbroath
with my Auntie Mary, who’s
not around now, and a clip of
me sliding down a pole as a
wee girl.
“There’s footage of Ricky at a
party in his old garden, too.”
We are transported back in
time to tenements and tower
blocks and wide-open countryside
and limitless possibility.
DIGNITY
youtu.be/nsr9HCOgQe0
It begins in moody black and
white, McIntosh wrapped up
against the dreich weather,
walking along a deserted beach.
For some reason this tableau
evokes the ghost of Alexander
Selkirk, the Fifer and Royal Navy
offi cer castaway on a remote
South Pacifi c Island at the outset
of the 18th century, though
arguably his ordeal would have
been mitigated by the occasional
appearance of the sun.
Ross is perched on a rock,
complete with impressively
sculpted quiff. The video then
cuts to the band performing on
a soundstage, all of them swept
along by the redoubtable spirit of
the song.
Back to the beach where the
words ‘Hope’ and ‘Work’ are
scrolled in the sand, while Ross
writes ‘Faith’ on the palm of
his hand.
WHEN WILL YOU (MAKE
MY TELEPHONE RING)
youtu.be/sWSi5MMEIOA
Directed by John Scarlett-Davis
and produced by Nick Verden
for Radar Films – the same duo
that helmed Aztec Camera’s
Somewhere In My Heart promo.
Blurry fi gures move about in a
public space before the screen
splits to reveal a similarly blurry
Graeme Kelling playing the guitar
intro. Enter Ross in the foreground,
tastefully attired in a resplendent
white shirt and grey waistcoat,
like some wannabe 80’s Sinatra
or blue-eyed soul man.
The camera pans into focus,
variously showing the band
around a table, McIntosh looking
impossibly beautiful and Dougie
Vipond giving it some welly on
the big bass drum.
And that’s really it. Nothing
much else happens, but the
imagery is stylish and the song,
of course, irresistible.
YOUR TOWN
youtu.be/umQmCZ8VdOs
A forbidding blood red skyline,
the guts of an elevator shaft, a
passenger plane speeding low
overhead like a missile – we are
in the post-apocalyptic terrain of
a JG Ballard novel, High Rise or
Crash. Except we’re not.
This is Blighty in what was
supposed to be a new era of
hope, Your Town being Deacon
Blue’s bitter riposte to the
outcome of the 1992 General
Election. Thatcher may have
gone, but Thatcherism endured
in the systematic splintering of
society. What’s presented here is
a world without people, a world
of relentless traffi c, nameless,
formless, characterless entities
stoking the capitalist nightmare.
The song is rendered in murky,
grainy colours, Ross, his eyes
blacked out in spooky spectacles,
recalling Tom Waits in Big Time.
It’s all very unsettling.