Wednesday 18 April 2012

Del Amitri

Now let’s get this straight. I love the songs of Del Amitri but I couldn’t tell you much about the band. I know that they hail from Scotland and that the lead singer is Justin Currie. They may have split up they may still be together, I don’t know and I don’t care. I couldn’t use them as my specialist subject on Mastermind, I will leave that to others. What I do know is that I love their songs.

Now I’ve had time to think about this. Other bands that I loved in my youth I tired of, Transvision Vamp is a good example, the lead singer Wendy James was deeply deeply hot and her bubblegum punk was catchy but grated after a couple of years. Del Amitri rose to prominence with their second album* “Waking Hours” which contained the monster hit “Nothing Ever Happens”.



Now like TV this spoke to teenage me. But whereas Wendy James excited with her threats that she would beat up another girl for me Del Amitri did something else, they introduced me to existential angst. This song celebrated the futility of existence, the dull repetition of life and as such was oddly joyous and new. I was studying TS Eliot at the time and made connections between poor old Prufrock measuring his days in coffee spoons and the needle returning to the start of the song in Currie’s classic.


Alfred Gough reads TS Eliot's "Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock".

They introduced me to songs of break-ups, unrequited love, men desperately clinging to fracturing relationships all shot through with a real sense of place, this is a grey world of rain, broken buildings, traffic jams and grotty nightclubs. The songs were compelling, evocative and most crucially; utterly cathartic.

This Side Of The Morning

Good break up songs cleanse the listener for a variety of different reasons. They provide a fantasy in which the worst can be played out…
“They say that it’s better to have loved than lost than never to have loved at all
But if you sit back and count the cost of all those losses there’s no profit at all.”
You're Gone – Waking Hours

You're Gone


They leave you feeling better that this has happened to Justin Currie, who like some Scottish Tragic hero goes through all of this shite so that you don’t have to. They make you appreciate what you have, or for a youngster make you aim for something better,  as these songs often go through the mistakes that lead to the break up.
But what makes me keep coming back to them? I tried to listen to a Transvision Vamp** album some time ago and couldn’t sit through it, I am not the person I once was. I do not have these concerns anymore, but I still like Del Amitri. Why?

Is it the music?
Yes.

Is it the earnest and heartfelt writing?
"Like everyone else will do, I'm gonna lie to you / Tell you that life is cruel, but some day you're gonna wake up / With sleep instead of teardrops in your eyes" – what other band writes about grief in such a beautiful way?
So… Yes.




Is it the voice?
Yes.

So. I am not ashamed.  Del Amitri are quite simply MY FAVOURITE BAND.














I have some other favourites but let's not muddy the waters with them yet...


















*For those of you who thought this was their first album don’t get excited, their first “Del Amitri” is a band finding their feet and sound and is quite frankly unlistenable.

**Although I could listen to this all day.

1 comment:

  1. Love it, if I wasn't at work I would go home straight away and dig out the CD. Any more right on this and you'd be Mussolini.

    ReplyDelete