Deacon Blue: "Real Gone Kid"

5 October 1988

"Scottish popstrels Deacon Blue are a bit of a mystery. They've had one medium-sized hit with "Dignity", a minor one with "Chocolate Girl" and now they're about to have a huge one with this."

— Graeme Kay

In the early part of 1988, Ricky Ross, singer, chief songwriter and leader of Glasgow's Deacon Blue, was just getting to work on his band's second album when he went to a record company meeting. Just two songs — "Real Gone Kid" and "The World Is Lit by Lightning" — had been completed but things already looked promising for a group that had enjoyed critical acclaim a year earlier for their debut album Raintown but had little in the way financially to show for it. An A&R rep for label CBS enthused that the struggling group had at least one big hit forthcoming. "I was quizzical", Ross would later claim, "which one? I had no idea".

Ross must have had poor commercial instincts since it's easy to see which of the two was the potential hit. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that the (sort of) "title track reaches for the skies and falls flat", it certainly isn't an especially notable song and wouldn't have been good enough for Raintown. "The World Is Lit by Lightning" has its place on second album When the World Knows Your Name (as you will no doubt see, it isn't the title track at all but it does contain the line "when the world, when the world, when the world knows your name" repeated several times so I suppose it qualifies) as respectable filler but there's not much to recommend it beyond Lorraine McIntosh's angelic backing vocals.

The hit that both a record company flunky and Smash Hits scribe Graeme Kay foresaw, however, was everything that those admittedly top notch 45's from Raintown — the classic "Dignity", "Loaded", "When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring)", "Chocolate Girl" — could only dream of being: it grabbed the listener's attention. If you already happen to be paying attention, then it does so effortlessly; if you happen to be daydreaming or thinking of something else, it still hooks you in via involuntary toe-tapping or singing along without you even noticing it. You may not swoon the way I do whenever I put it on but that's okay.

A common trait of Scottish bands in the eighties and nineties was that they tended to look west rather than south. Wet Wet Wet were all about Marvin Gaye and Al Green. The members of Texas favoured Ry Cooder and, later, Motown. Greg and Pat Kane from Hue & Cry were Sinatra fanatics. Teenage Fanclub and other groups in their circle who never made it (yes, I'm thinking of you, BMX Bandits) were all obsessed with The Byrds and Big Star. Jim and William Reid had a little more interest in English pop and rock but the foundation of The Jesus & Mary Chain was built on The Velvet Underground. Deacon Blue were much the same — they were named after a Steely Dan song for god's sake — only they had much broader influences, particularly when held up against some of their sophisti-pop contemporaries.

This musical catholicism made them harder to compartmentalise. While Raintown had been the child of The Blue Nile's first album A Walk Across the Rooftops (a seminal record, particularly for a generation of Scottish groups), When the World Knows Your Name was all over the place when it came to sources of inspiration. Opener and eventual single "Queen of the New Year" and deep cut "Your Constant Heart" borrowed from country music, while "Circus Lights" is not unlike an anthemic Simple Minds number. Side one's closer "This Changing Light" had guitarist Graeme Kelling doing his best impression of U2's The Edge. "Fergus Sings the Blues" is their own answer to Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" with a pasty Scotsman fronting an "authentic" soul group. (Their influences are even more pronounced on some of their b-sides: the 12" release of "Real Gone Kid" includes covers of both Sam & Dave ("Born Again") and Hüsker Dü ("It's Not Funny Anymore"); the 12" of follow-up "Wages Day" had a surprisingly sensitive take on Julian Cope's "Trampoline")

"Real Gone Kid" itself is low on roots rock beyond a bit of honky tonk piano played by Jim Prime but it is able to condense stadium rock of the time into something with pop hooks. While U2 were tripping on Americana and the sixties, Deacon Blue were managing something not dissimilar without shoving it down people's throats or pretending what they were doing was somehow still contemporary (I always say that the problem with the John Lennon tribute "God Part 2" is that the line "don't believe in the sixties, the golden age of pop / if you glorify the past, your future dries up" is that it's irreconcilable with the rest of the Rattle & Hum album). While ver Blue had a sizable adult following in Britain from this point on (while the 1988-89 batch of singles performed much better than the earlier bunch, they still weren't megahits, implying that older fans in particular were holding out for the album which wouldn't be released until the following spring), they also appealed to a section of pop kids: those of us who didn't care for metal and weren't ready for indie but still liked guitars. Then Jerico weren't far off from this either but their lyrics weren't as good; Transvision Vamp were in the mix too but Wendy James made it difficult to take them seriously.

Quite how many young people got into them is another matter. The Smash Hits letters page (aka Black Type) would field the odd bit of correspondence from readers inquiring about them and they did all right in the magazine's '89 Reader's Poll coming in seventh and tenth for best group and best album respectively. That said, I knew a lot more people who disliked them than counted themselves as fans (it was basically just me and two other people, one of them being my sister). My friends in the UK at that time, the lousy pals I would return to in Canada that summer, a much nicer group of chums I would cultivate in the subsequent years in junior high and high school, people I have discussed music with here and there, the bulk of Music Twitter, hip and cool music critics: they shared little in common beyond not thinking much of Deacon Blue and wondering what on earth I saw in them. Their young fans must have been out there but I never met any of them.

But that is a vital part of a young person's musical development: finding an artist or group we like that everyone else seems at best indifferent towards. Sure, there was that girl I'd see in the hallways of my junior high who wore a Bauhaus shirt but there's always that person: she just had to find those other alternative rock outsiders and she'd have a community (at least in theory); but in opting for Deacon Blue I might as well have been a Cab Calloway enthusiast in the late-eighties. I tried getting friends and classmates into them ("But I liked it", said an unhelpful Mr Coutts as everyone else in art class demanded it be turned off, even though it was my turn to play a tape), then I used the group's anonymity in Canada to my advantage by keeping them to myself. I would be made fun of for liking lots of music (you weren't even allowed to like the Pet Shop Boys where I went to school) but not Deacon Blue because no one knew who they were. Then I got older and some of the bands I used to be teased for being into were suddenly cool. But, yet again, my favourite Scottish group wasn't part of that revival either.

Still, "Real Gone Kid" was the Top 10 hit that some record label dude predicted and they would go on to have a chart topping album six months later. Hit singles and albums would follow so there were people out there who liked them just as much as I did, if not more so. Quite where these people are, I don't know and at this point it doesn't much matter. I've lived with being just about their only fan I know and if someone cooler than me doesn't like them then that's their loss. Or not.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Hue & Cry: "Ordinary Angel"

Kay's runner-up for Single of the Fortnight and he's spot on here too, even considering the solid competition of Prince, The Human League, Jane Wiedlin, Public Enemy and Tanita Tikaram, who would happen to nab a nomination for Best Single at the notorious 1989 Brit Award along with Deacon Blue. There is the often legit claim that Pat Kane oversings but I think he gets it just right here (though I only just now discovered that he tried to be a "daily genius" rather than a "dilly genius", something I always puzzled over) The tune is sprightly and the addition of a sitar to get it started is one of those chef's kiss things people talk about. A great pop song that just missed out on the Top 40 but they'd have hits the following year with "Looking for Linda", which is every bit as good as "Ordinary Angel", and "Vi-oh-lent-ly", which isn't. An injustice in failure leading to an injustice in success, or something like that.

Run-DMC: "Mary, Mary"

27 July 1988

"This is a completely brilliant single which is refreshingly free of all that guff that rappers usually go on about i.e. "Look how tough, wonderful and fabulously rich I am." Simply splendid."

— Graeme Kay

It was 1986. A moderately famous hip hop trio had been working on their third album since the end of the previous year with a producer who could see beyond genres and race. Rick Rubin would eventually become renowned for reviving the careers of washed up rock and country stars but by this point he was still all about promoting metal, punk and rap. Fusing them was still a rarity and there was no guarantee that even if the finished product of fused hip hop and rock worked in the studio that anyone would go out and buy it. Run-DMC's first attempt was risky but it turned out to be a hit around the world. "Walk This Way" is still their best known number — and one that would return Aerosmith to pop music relevance. (Indeed, it's likely that the single did more for their careers than it did for Run-DMC)

That same summer, another old pop group came back but it didn't result in a return to the charts. The Monkees had been a popular sit com in the late-sixties and it got picked up by cable TV music channels MTV and Canada's MuchMusic for its twentieth anniversary. While the likes of "Last Train to Clarksville", "I'm a Believer" and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" were huge hits that accompanied the show, this time the music was much more of an afterthought. The show was still funny and that was all that mattered. A Michael Nesmith-free Monkees attempted to cash in on the notoriety by releasing a new album the following year but no one cared. Similarly, an updated New Monkees series was developed but it was quickly cancelled. All people in the eighties wanted from the prefab four was for them to be a bunch of goofs in their surprisingly timeless show with songs that ranged from decent to forgettable. They weren't a real group then so why would anyone treat them any differently now? Still, a Monkees musical revival was coming and some were already paying attention.

Jump ahead to the summer of 1988 and the two have come together. "Mary, Mary" was by a then unknown Michael Nesmith and originally recorded by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band before its composer offered it for his new band The Monkees on their 1967 second album More of the Monkees. While the tune is pretty good, neither of these recordings are up to much. Butterfield's is just your bog standard gut bucket blues which is fine if you like that sort of thing while The Monkees' version is tame and inoffensive garage rock and Mickey Dolenz's bland delivery does it no favours. (In fairness, I don't think Nesmith, Davy Jones or the underutilized Peter Tork would've done any better)

How "Mary, Mary" found its way to the members of Run-DMC is anybody's guess but the show being back on the air couldn't have hurt. While people might assume it's a sequel to "Walk This Way", the two aren't as similar as one might expect. First, Aerosmith's original had already been a hit single while The Monkees had tucked "Mary, Mary" away on their second album. If they had wanted to steal the thunder of a silly old sit com and the manufactured band that grew out of it, they could have used that simple riff from "Last Train to Clarksville" or the dinky little piano from "Daydream Believer" rather than a song that hardly anyone remembered. Yet, they chose well: here was an oldie with untapped potential and in serious need of a hardcore kick.

The other main difference is the use of samples. Run-DMCs first three albums had been relatively clean affairs with guest musicians (people often forget that Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry rerecorded their vocal and guitar parts for "Walk This Way") but 1987 had been all about sample-heavy hits like M|A|R|R|S' "Pump Up the Volume" and Erik B & Rakim's "I Know You Got Soul". Why pay sessioners for their time when you can "borrow" a bassline or drum pattern and pay nothing for it? Nesmith doesn't return to play on it and Dolenz's voice barely registers. All you've got instead is an excellent tune for the NYC trio to do their "thing".

Ultimately, this is the first version that justifies Nesmith's song. "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone" had affirmed their cred when the post-Lydon version of the Sex Pistols covered it and this is much the same only far better. Still credited solely to the heir of the Liquid Paper millions, Run and DMC wrote some strong verses that they deliver with their usual hard-hitting raps and Jam Master Jay scratches up a storm. The sound isn't as full as on "Walk This Way" but "Mary, Mary" is the superior record. Aerosmith stole the show the last time but it's all Run-DMC here. 

This same issue of Smash Hits also includes an album review of one of 1988's most seminal releases. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was Public Enemy's second album and is generally regarded as their finest work. I like lots of it but there's filler too and reviewer Tom Doyle seems genuinely worn out with it. Though he concludes by stating that it's "very entertaining", it's obviously that this brand of rap is heavy going. (Public Enemy had a "message", you know) Graeme Kay expresses boredom of overly boastful hip hop but this kind of serious, weighty rap could grate just as much. Meanwhile, Run-DMC began to slip through the cracks and it would be several months before a lighter approach to hip hop began appear. Rap rock would return with Bootsauce, Living Color and Urban Dance Squad in the early nineties but they were never like the originals. 

As if sensing changes in the hip hop air, the promo for "Mary, Mary" features a group of conservative women protesting at a Run-DMC concert. This is still at least a year out from the 2 Live Crew controversy and the subsequent not-at-all-racist decision to paste those stupid 'PARENTAL ADVISORY' labels on every rap album but a backlash to the hip hop revolution was coming. The video humourously sends up these reactionaries but suggests that rap was soon to leave its innocence behind. Run-DMC could hide behind The Monkees but their contemporaries weren't so lucky.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Jane Wiedlin: "Rush Hour"

I was staying with my grandparents during the very warm Canadian summer of 1988 when I noticed the music video for "Rush Hour". There were dolphins swimming all over the place and a pretty, fun-sized woman singing along and playing the guitar. She even got to swim along with the dolphins for a bit. The video was good but I loved the song. A little over a month later I was in England with my family. Everything was different. Cars drove on the other side of the road, the food tasted funny, I had no idea how to answer the question "how do you do?" and cans of Coke had to be opened by pulling on a sticker tab. (I would eventually grow into the annoying adult who finds differences to be cute and funny but, mercifully, I was still a ways away from that) Nothing familiar. Then, we visited Canterbury and Dover just prior to the school year starting and I heard "Rush Hour" playing in a shop. It was nice that something had come over the Atlantic with us, especially when it's a fantastic piece of California sunshine pop-rock that's impossible to dislike. And who knows, maybe there would be some more music for me to enjoy.