Tag: Paul Heaton

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Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #92 The Housemartins “Caravan of love” (1986)

<< #93    |    #91 >>

Ah… the high school dance memories…

The Housemartins’ “Caravan of love” at track #92, reminds me of the half-hugging*, half-shuffling we would call “slow dancing” back in the old high school auditorium days. Teen boys lining the walls on one end of the hall and groups of tittering teen girls on the other, each eyeing and sizing the other up, while betwixt them were couples that had got up the nerve to cross the floor and find each other. There might be a few more songs on this list that call this image clearly to mind, some on this list mostly because of this memory.

In this case, though, I consider myself something more of a fan of the group that sang the song. The Housemartins were formed in 1983 by Paul Heaton and Stan Cullimore and went through a number of personnel changes, that included drummer Dave Hemingway, who would go on to form The Beautiful South with Paul Heaton later on, and bassist Norman Cook, who would later go on to fame as Fatboy Slim. Their music was jangly, indie pop at its best with Paul Heaton’s extraordinary vocal work at the centre of it all.

The group only ever released two full-length albums and a handful of singles in their brief five years in existence, but so many of their songs soundtracked the latter half of my high school years and the ones immediately thereafter. Indeed, The Housemartins’ 1988 compilation, “Now that’s what I call quite good”, was one of first compact discs I ever bought, a necessity after I had worn out the cassette tape I had copied from a friend. So many great tunes on that one and it’s a compilation that I keep hoping will see a vinyl reissue one day.

“Caravan of love”, an a cappella cover of an Isley-Jasper-Isley tune (this is the first of a number of covers that will grace this list), gave The Housemartins their first and only UK #1 hit in December 1986. Paul Heaton and company often delved into a cappella territory but for some reason this is the one that struck a chord with the buying public. It certainly is a song that begs to be sung along with.

I think I’ll go sing along to it again.

“…Everybody take a stand, Join the caravan of love… Stand up, stand up…”

Original Eighties best 100 position: #89

Favourite lyric: “We’ll be living in a world of peace /
In the day when everyone is free ” Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

Where are they now?: As I hinted at above, the band went their separate ways after they broke up in 1988 and never looked back. I read somewhere that the original members were gathered for a photo shoot and feature by Mojo magazine in 2009 and at that time, they unfortunately maintained that there won’t ever be a reunion.

*Not too close, mind you, it was a Catholic high school!

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1992: #9 The Beautiful South “Old red eyes is back”

<< #10    |    #8 >>

I’ve already written in passing on these pages about how I wrote all of my first year university essays to Beautiful South’s third album, “0898”. The reason behind this was quite simple: it was one of the first albums I purchased on compact disc. Of course, it was a quieter album and I wrote most of my first years essays late at night. You see, I was living at home at the time and it was the only quiet time I had to myself in a very full house. I remember one night in particular when I had two essays due on the following day and I hadn’t started either one. I hopped myself up on Jolt Cola and set myself down with the intention to write both that night. I finished one and started the other, printing both in the early hours of the morning while sipping away at a Folgers instant. And the whole night long, “0898” was playing.

You might think that the way I experienced this album that year might have intrinsically led to me tying it up with bad memories. But not so. It is because of those long, arduous sessions that I know this album I intimately. I know every song, every note, every word. Whenever I listen to it, a smile is brought to my lips, many times throughout the listen, for different songs, for different reasons.

Is this Beautiful South’s best album? In my opinion, yes. I realize I am biased here. But I am willing to fight anyone who disagrees.

“Old Red eyes is back
Red from the night before the night before
Walked into the wrong bar walked into a door“

The album starts off with “Old red eyes is back”, a track that wasn’t particularly obvious as a single, but there it was nonetheless, the first single, poking at us with a sturdy red finger. It begins with Heaton singing passion, all alone against the heavy-handed playing of a grand piano, then, at the end of the first verse, the rest of the band joins in, drums and guitars and synthesized strings, back up vocals and all, making a statement, an exclamation mark, railing against the evils of alcoholism. I was new to alcohol at the time, only just  experimenting here and there with beer and wine and rum. I’d had a good time with it but understood there were dangers there. And of course, I clung to the tragedy of it all.

“Old Red he died
And every single landlord in the district cried
An empty bottle of whiskey laying by his side
A lazy little tear running from each eye
They could never be blue“

The Beautiful South were a pop band but they were also a social conscience and that’s what I loved about them, especially at the beginning. Yes, there was that singular voice of Paul Heaton. But without the meaning that spoke to me, I may never have fallen for them.

I did, though, and this song is a big reason why. So, so good.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Beautiful South “Miaow”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Beautiful South
Album Title: Miaow
Year released: 1994
Year reissued: 2018
Details: black vinyl

The skinny: So this here’s the third and final (for now) installment in a totally unplanned series on the reissued Beautiful South albums in my vinyl collection. “Miaow” is the English alternative pop band’s fourth album and in my opinion, was their last great record. Much like on “Welcome to The Beautiful South“, the subject of the first of this series two weeks ago, the cover on this reissue is much different than the one I purchased on CD, many moons ago. But the reason for this was a controversy of a different sort. The owners of music chain HMV thought that the original cover of an audience of dogs expectantly looking up at a gramophone on a stage poked fun at their trademark. I’d never seen this replacement cover featuring sailing dogs until I received this reissue in the post. I’m still hoping that the band’s sophomore album, “Choke”, gets a reissue so that I can complete my collection of their must-have first four records. And well, I find myself wondering what that album cover will look like.

Standout track: “Hooligans don’t fall in love”