#21: If You Could Love Me : Edwyn Collins (Setanta Records, ZOP 002, 1995)
“The thing is. If this had been released as a single by someone like Robbie Williams, it would have been a huge hit and made Edwyn a lot of money.”
The thoughts of my old friend Jacques the Kipper as we chatted about and rued the fact that If You Could Love Me had been a total flop. It hit the shops in March 1996, once again on 2 x CDs and 12″ vinyl
CD1
mp3: Edwyn Collins – If You Could Love Me (radio edit)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – In A Broken Dream
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Hope and Despair
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Insider Dealing
CD2
mp3: Edwyn Collins – If You Could Love Me (radio edit)
mp3: Edwyn Collins – If Ever You’re Ready
mp3: Edwyn Collins – Come To Your Senses
mp3: Edwyn Collins – A Girl Like You (Victorian Spaceman Mix)
JtK was bang on the money. If You Could Love Me is an unashamedly pop song, and if any of the pop world’s male vocalists had taken into the studios with no expense spared (just imagine it having an orchestral backing!!), then it would by now be a ballad that we would be utterly sick of hearing all these years later! But #98 in the expanded Top 100 was all that it managed with Edwyn’s vocal. Incidentally, the radio edit is just six seconds shorter than the album version, with a slightly different opening which doesn’t fade-in.
The two CDs offered up b-sides, mostly from the post-Gorgeous George period. Edwyn had become good friends with Bernard Butler, who, in a move that had stunned the world of indie music, quit Suede in 1994 with the band seemingly at their creative peak, not to mention enjoying substantial commercial success. Edwyn liked to self-produce his songs, but he took up Bernard’s offer to come into a studio to work together, with Bernard taking on production duties. The results can be heard on some of the tracks which came out on these two CDs.
In A Broken Dream was a cover version, one recorded in the late 60s by Australian rock band Python Lee Jackson, but only became a hit in 1972 thanks to the fact that the unknown session singer they had used, Rod Stewart, was riding very high both as a solo star and the frontman of The Faces.
Hope and Despair is a new recording of the title track of Edwyn’s 1989 album – very much a case of duelling guitars, acoustic and electric.
Insider Dealing is the curveball, extending to more than 8 minutes and being a song co-written by Collins/Butler. It’s a very understated ballad, possibly a little bit self-indulgent at times, as it feels as if Bernard is trying different production techniques as they could best apply to a very slow song. But as bonus songs on CD singles so, it was more than fine.
If Ever You’re Ready was one of Edwyn’s oldest songs, appearing initially as a b-side to debut single Don’t Shilly Shally and then being re-recorded for his debut album Hope and Despair. Five years on and the duo’s take on it is rather sublime, one that feels as if it should run over the credits of a film where the hero has met an unexpected end and the fade to black out has seen his wife/girlfriend/partner in tears.
Come To Your Senses gives a production credit to Dave Anderson, and with Discogs indicating that he often worked at Power Plant studios, where Edwyn had recorded his 1990 album Hellbent on Compromise, I’m wondering if this was a song dating back to those sessions. There’s no info within the liner notes and it is pure speculation on my part.
The Victorian Spaceman Remix of A Girl Like You had actually been included on the 12″ vinyl of the Expressly Yours EP (see last week). It was the work of a then mostly unheralded producer/engineer named Sebastian Lewsley who would, over the next 20 years, become one of Edwyn’s most trusted collaborators. This remix is over six minutes long and contains all sorts of elements of studio trickery, turning it into a near instrumental that I suspect will delight or annoy in equal measures.
The 12″ vinyl release of the single also contained an otherwise unavailable mix:-
mp3: Edwyn Collins – If You Could Love Me (M.C. Esher Mix)
A different mix altogether, with the fabulous guitar riffs to the fore. I’ve no idea who M.C. Esher is, but I’m guessing it might be a pseudonym used by Edwyn.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 