#2: Blue Boy/Lovesick : Orange Juice (Postcard 80-2, 1980)
Having been embittered a bit by the experience in the Strathaven studio with the debut, the band, in April 1980, headed east to Pencaitland, a village some 16 miles south-east of Edinburgh and home to Castlesound studios. This time, Alex Fergusson, who had been part of various bands from the mid-70s onwards, including punk act Alternative TV, was in the producer’s chair. The session delivered two songs for a double A sided effort, including what many consider to be Orange Juice‘s most enduring song:-
mp3 : Orange Juice – Blue Boy
Released in September 1980, on the same day as Josef K‘s Radio Drill Time, which was just as well as the two singles shared doubled up picture sleeves. These were black and white, with the plan being to have them hand-coloured individually, using pencils. The members of Josef K were meticulous in their approach, carefully adding relevant colours to a pair of shoes and a pot plant.
Orange Juice did things a bit differently. The band, and a few of their friends held a ‘colouring-in party’ at 185 West Princes Street in Glasgow, home of Alan Horne and the de facto HQ of Postcard Records at which, having discovered that doing things carefully and properly would take an incredibly long time, they all just scribbled lines, shapes and the occasional words randomly, meaning that no two sleeves were the same. This Discogs page has a quite a few of the examples…just click the ‘More Images’ link.
The flip side is also a bit of a belter.
In 1993, Postcard Records would be temporarily reactivated, and Blue Boy/Love sick was released as a CD single, along with a limited edition on 7″ vinyl (catalogue number DUBH 934), complete with a fully coloured sleeve:-
The CD would come with two additional and previously unreleased versions of Poor Old Soul, a single which will actually feature later on in this series:-
mp3: Orange Juice – Poor Old Soul (French Language Version)
mp3: Orange Juice – Poor Old Soul (instrumental version)
The latter is really quite strange……..
There would be one more single in 1980.
JC
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Hi JC. Would enjoy knowing if you have one of these original sleeves with the blue labels and, if so, what kind of messages or alterations did the lads and lasses scrawl on it? Alas, I have a later issue with the brown labels and generic Postcard sleeve.
I am so happy to see this series, JC. Thank you!
Having both had the (separate) pleasure of hearing Edwyn perform Blue Boy live on stage this week, the argument that it’s one of his – and Orange Juice’s – most enduring songs, is sound.
I’ve shared my experience of Tuesday night’s show in Bath over at my place.
https://dubhed.blogspot.com
Just saw him last night and a fabulous ending of Blueboy and Felicity with James Kirk on stage – magical
Really looking forward to this series JC. (NB Everyone check out Khayem’s Edwyn review – link above!)
What a great set of songs to start my day. I really love that instrumental…fantastic.
This is the most meaningful one for me. ‘Lovesick’ just happened to coincide with me being lovesick for the first time – how could that happen?*
And ‘Blueboy’ was just…. magnificent, although it’s another one where I got the lyrics wrong…in my universe it was “he was listening to the worstening sound…..of the blueboy”.
* It lasted 4 weeks before I was dumped.
Hi Brian
Have e-mailed you 🙂
Great idea for a series, JC, with some brilliant singles to come. But this one in, it’s unique sleeve, is the greatest seven inches of the great man’s career. I remember getting home with my copy and putting it on the turntable and being blown away.