— David Hepworth
Let's start things off with the sleeve. Jazzier, more laid back bands like Weekend and Aztec Camera might have opted for such an artsy single cover had the once gloomy Echo & The Bunnymen not beaten them to it. (It could have even been used by hip twenty-first century acts like Bright Eyes and others who are so hip that I've either forgotten who they are or they're way too cool for me) In one respect this is completely on brand for them: it's an image taken from The Promise by Liverpool artist Henry Scott Tuke. Considering that The Bunnymen would one day organize a day long tour of Merseyside complete with breakfast at their favourite cafe, a cycling trip around the city and finishing up with them playing a concert (a day out which Bill Drummond once described as his "favourite Bunny moment"), Ian McCulloch and his mates were typically more than happy to promote a fellow Scouser.
On the other hand, such supposedly downcast groups aren't expected to use such a wistful image for their cover art. Previous Bunnymen singles had sleeves much more in line with their brand of new wave/post-punk. That said, their new sound wasn't really jiving with what they had been about up until then.
As David Hepworth says, there's the sense that they were no longer satisfied being on pop's fringes and that they would make a go at trying to have a hit for once. Rather stunningly, it worked. It isn't as if "The Back of Love" was a radical departure for them, only a refinement into something that could be consumed by the public at large.
Being part of the same neo-psychedelic scene that briefly turned The Teardrop Explodes into the band of the future, it seems only right that they would borrow some of Julian Cope's buoyant vocal mannerisms and some choice horns at the song's closing to put "The Back of Love" over the top. If anything, it suggests that the future all of sudden belonged to the them. (A pity Cope never claimed that they could easily have been Echo & The Bunnymen)
But the seeds of their very first hit go back much further. There's glam rock, particularly in the way that McCulloch delivers his lines with a whole new swagger. The clipped guitar sounds like it could've been played on a synth. And this single is a welcome reminder of what a tight outfit Echo & The Bunnymen always were, as frenetic as Dr. Feelgood, as musically sharp as Elvis Costello & The Attractions and as deceptively idiosyncratic as Squeeze. Yes, had they not been careful, those Bunnies could've ended up as a pub rock combo selling out Southend's Kursaal Ballroom. And as far as them "cutting loose", this has to be the first time that such an uptight band actually sounded as if they were enjoying the task of cutting records.
I've never been a huge Echo & The Bunnymen fan but this blog has made me realise that had they come into my life at the right time, I would've been all in for them. An impressionable youngster could do a whole lot worse. That sleeve would've grabbed my attention and the music would have lifted me out of my angsty, teenage languor. Spotty, miserable youths are supposed to be these losers who lock themselves in their bedrooms and refuse to speak to anyone but is that the reality? I was a fully grown 195 cm by the age of fourteen, I was rake-thin, I had bad acne, I was a lazy good-for-nothing and I listened to way too much Morrissey. Yet, I was also on the basketball team, I watched hockey on TV, I wished to live a life like I saw on The Wonder Years, I drank slurpees almost every day and I often found myself loving mainstream pop. That's the way it's supposed to be and Echo & The Bunnymen are very much the band that represent these contradictions.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Space: "Magic Fly"
A huge hit single five years earlier that only missed the number one spot because of Elvis paying the inevitable price for his over indulgence in pharmaceuticals, "Magic Fly" was nevertheless way ahead of its time — and still is. Like The Tornados' extraordinary "Telstar" it is futuristic while also being a period piece about how the future was envisioned when it was conceived. Playful in a way I could only dream of Kraftwerk being, it has more than a little of Japanese Shibuya-kei to it. Hepworth enthuses that it's the "most tasteful record of the week" but the audience wasn't there for it anymore. Perhaps it was due to them being French but "Magic Fly" subsequently disappeared. So forgotten were they that another Liverpool band would emerge in the nineties calling themselves Space. (Did Paris record shops insist on referring to them as something like The English Space or Space UK?) It's high time we all did some rediscovering of this weird but irresistible classic.
(Click here to see my original review)
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