The Blue Nile: C or D?

one) You won’t like them. A Walk Across The Rooftops contains slap bass, trite lyrics on the debris of relationships, pans from (yawn) Coppola’s One From the Heart into (yawn) Paris, Texas, sung by Springsteen impersonating Sinatra. Hats has two white reggae tracks, gated snares, repeated use of the word ‘baby’, yes, is ‘lush’, ‘cinematic’ and MOR. Annie Lennox and Rod Stewart have covered their songs. Phil Collins endorses them.

two) I don’t like American Music Club, John Cale, Talking Heads, Rickie Lee Jones or The Cars either.

three) Men in American books tend to wear hats.

four) Katy (my girlfriend) was in a philosophy class and, as the hush of young students began to stifle and choke, the teacher, by way of gesture, mentioned the best class he ever had occurred when Paul Buchanan, ‘you probably haven’t heard of him’, suggested they talk about love.

five) No-one has registered the scientific unproveability of ‘love’ in song more heart-rendingly than Paul Buchanan: singing “how do I know you feel it?”, just moments from loss, or the frustrated ‘I can only tell you’ of “do I love you? YES I love you!”

six) What do you say when three years into a relationship the only things holding you together is the fear of breaking the ties you’ve built in the outside world as a unit? When an offer of tea is the only lull in the silence? “Let’s go out tonight”, one last time, meet up with the ghost of your happiness, it can be the same again, you will dance, for one night, oh to bed the same different woman every night, and leave the relationship strafed with cigarette burns and headaches in, alone.

seven) Such compassionate pop. During Hats, the band’s lives were fragmenting and none of them felt they had any support around them, it would have been so easy to become insular and dismissive of others in such a situation.

eight) Below a peat sky, her hair is scraped through with coral orange and tickles of grey, and a smell of moist pollen sewn into the webs of her fingers. Scotland’s inability to say Carl strains a last laugh out from her, smoke knuckles through our hair, as the aftertaste of other men places her lips and her eyes’ slow moulder.

nine) You will like them. A Walk Across the Rooftops is a deeply emotional water, Buchanan a child lost in the weave of a Frank O’Hara poem. Hats refuses Don Paterson’s cycnicism of romance and insists on the transcendental of the ordinary and of the journey, the pressure difference.

!) I think romanticism suggests this sense of wilfully not having it all, leaving that one bit back, the whole, the mysterious ‘last’ that can never be reached, romanticism is the journey to try and attain that that you’re purposefully denying yourself. I have never listened to their third record, I most probably never will.

or it could be a disaster too i suppose.

''(Haha, Julio, that's where I nicked my structure, but I guess it was alright cos I think he nicked the turn from the X Y Zedd post on the 'What if Punk Never Happened?' thread).''

I just thought i had seen something like that. but yr post is triffic in its own way.

Yes! "If You're Not The One" works in exactly the same way as the peerless "Tinseltown In The Rain" ie. a "generic" love song rendered strange and fascinating by the force and peculiarity of its emotional over-investment.

Although Cozen you should really check out that there new Coloma album which is almost self-consciously an update of The Blue Nile for the post-glitch generation. As with The Blue Nile it's svelte literary studio-pop that feels like all the sound-politics have been surgically removed (eg. this is click-pop only because, well, why not if it sounds good? cf. Schneider TM's "The Light 3000") so I imagine that in a decade or so it'll have that same lovely timeless-datedness as TBN's first two albums have. It's very much like A Walk Across The Rooftops in particular. Much better than their first album.

I saw him on 'today with des & mel'.

I figured out why I like Daniel Bedingfield earlier. Or one aspect. I remembered something Frank Kogan said to me about how he really liked the way that I wasn't scared to be overwrought when the usual rock-crit approach is to come across all Ed Casual (hehe, what's Frank's e-mail address again?). I suppose I see a lot of myself in Daniel. All thing considered, a juxtaposition of poets might be in order:

Everywhere he saw his own image, -
his perfect face...

When he rode out of the city, the people
gathered to admire him: a ribbon
of faces, fixed on this one face
and haunted by its indifference. They said:
'as beautiful as a painting', and we
feel a chill cast across these years
for we know there is another painting
that does not hang in any gallery

- John Ash

I like you so much I'm acting stupid
I can't play the game I'm all intense and alive
I'm losing control of my heart
I'm not supposed to be this nervous
I should play my hand all cool and calm
I can't breathe
I'm losing control of my heart

- Daniel Bedingfield

I was trying to think of more music from the eighties that fits into this area of explicitly emotional quasi-dance pop, but I couldn't get far beyond The Hounds of Love. Any ideas?

Associates surely fit this description.

But Tim is OTM regarding Tinseltown being a lost dance classic, I certainly remember hearing it in clubs in Dundee in the mid-80's. Apparently they had some of their work from Hats remixed by Oakenfold (or some other name remixer), but they nixed it on hearing it. Now that I'd like to hear.

Where did the up and happy songs go, then? Left to rot as demos?

I don't think I'd have the bare-faced gall to actually talk to the man though.

It feels a bit criminal to actually listen to the Blue Nile at this time of year though, like I'm going to shatter the mood.

1. The only track I know is 'I Love This Life', which the Nipper gave me. The Nipper is right about it.

2. Cozen's big post above is indeed good, and indeed structurally resembles one of mine. But no, I didn't take my own structure from anyone else.

3. Whether or not the Bedingfield link is apt, I don't think 'emotional overinvolvement' etc is necessarily the key to 'If You're Not The One': what woke me up to that track was simply the rare quality of its tune.

This feels terrifyingly prescient in light of recent of events. If I can be specious for a moment.

the city doesnt have to be imaginary. any city is good when the street lights are reflected in puddles on the sidewalk.

; )

Paul does sing on the track, but not as much as I expected based on having a feat. credit.

Does anybody know the story of "Young Club"? It haunts me. From the sound of it, I would take it to be post-'Hats' but pre-'High,' but really don't know, and kind find anything about it. But it's just so, so, so fucking good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvcd0ADqu94

Another post of it, sounds slightly differently sourced?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dmbIfI7EdU

'Young Club' is indeed a track from the Hats sessions. It's on the B-sides and Rare CDr

Damn, wish it had been included in complete/quality form with the 'Hats' deluxe, then...

still getting knocked out by "i" on a daily basis

Do I remember right that there is a collection of b-sides and whatnot that has not been rounded up on these reissues? Anybody got a link? I fell in love with this band due to seeing this thread repeatedly bumped for a while and I'm trying to hunt down everything I can.

It's weird that Peace At Last Deluxe is the CD that is hardest to find. I thought that was the one that was less loved?

not sure if this has been posted in another thread on here, but even if so deserves a repost - fantastic quality live show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fItoUZunua4&list=PLwXOGPZXptBCsQGmwc55lb5YgzZzcpAhT&index=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fItoUZunua4

Beautiful and melancholy short film of Paul talking about Tinseltown in the Rain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFoMUAmDGCI

@KenSweeney, were you aware this track was re-mixed/re-released for download last month? You're usually my first source for anything The Blue Nile related! https://t.co/xd28FgSDtr

— Brad (@ballskwok) August 27, 2021

wowee.

absolutely lush.

PJ Moore and Co, eight track new album coming soon. Herald article here.

First track, "Need to Believe", available for download, along w/ album pre-order, at PJ Moore's site.

ooh good find!

There's obvs a hefty wodge of a-Ha in there too, but am I alone in hearing the Blue Nile's 'I Love this Life' in Harry Styles' 'As It Was'?

little piece in Tribune

Forty years ago, Glasgow band The Blue Nile released their first single. Their work was rooted in Glasgow itself, and the changes wrought by the shock of Thatcherism. https://t.co/j6VoGHLErq

— Tribune (@tribunemagazine) July 16, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fItoUZunua4

good piece and the live recording linked is immense

yo!

if any nileheads are up for it paul buchanan is selling a remastered 2LP 10th anniversary edition of mid air https://store.paulbuchanan.com

still waiting for my preorder to arrive!

PJ Moore has a new band:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23031729.founding-member-blue-nile-pj-moore-teams-new-project-album/

Interestingly, only the single is available on streaming (Apple Music, anyway). It sounds good--very Blue Nile, as one would expect.

You can listen to another track on their website (and buy the album there)

https://www.pjmooreandco.com/music-1

this song from last year by Nigel's project Quiet City featuring vocals by Pat was incredible

Quiet City - Due North (Remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuYDC2zY3wM

I honestly don't know if I can think of a single artist/band whose first single (a-side and b-side taken together) is more perfectly fully realized, and totally sui generis. I've never heard pure joy captured more wonderfully and without any mawkishness in music than with "I Love This Life," and the world-weary wisdom and old-soul sadness of "The Second Act" is so moving (and rather shocking coming from a 25-year-old). And to think--they got *better* for the next decade, seems impossible.

OTM, I just fell hard for this single, "The Second Act" even more than the A-side. It's so elegantly sad and makes me wish they had spent more time using a more primitive drum machine.

“Drownin’ in The Blue Nile
You sent me ’The Downtown Lights’
I hadn’t heard it in a while”

(Rumoured to be a new Taylor Swift lyric)

the rumors are true

Taylor Swift brought me here

You scenester

CAMEL graciously acknowledging their influence on the BLUE NILE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7JwGvGtYk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7r2EM-NsMo

matty did it 🥹

ill camel jawns thanks qualmsley