THE TESTIMONIAL TOUR OF 45s (aka The Singular Adventures of Edwyn Collins)

#34:In Your Eyes : Edwyn Collins & The Drums (Heavenly Records, HVN 219, 2011)

The third and final single to be lifted from Losing Sleep was Edwyn‘s collaboration with The Drums, an American indie-band whose stock was particularly high in 2010, thanks to a well-received debut album and a run of hit singles.

I am sure I read somewhere back at the time that Edwyn’s son, Will, was the person who initially suggested the collaboration as The Drums were one of his favourite new bands, and he thought his dad should work with some younger musicians.  It also helped that members of The Drums had cited Orange Juice and Edwyn Collins as having had a big influence on them.

This one is a bit different in style from the collaboration with Franz Ferdinand, in that it feels like a complete song on which Edwyn and Jonathon Pierce are initially duetting and later harmonising.  In other words, unlike the FF collaboration, you can’t make out the joins!

mp3: Edwyn Collins & The Drums – In Your Eyes

It genuinely is one of the stand-out tracks on the album, and it’s very interesting that when it came to the release of the single, which was seemingly in a limited run of 475 copies, it was attributed jointly.

Released only on 7″ vinyl and housed in a plain brown cardboard sleeve, this time with a blue label and the jukebox-style middle.

I actually couldn’t find a copy of this in Glasgow when it was released at the end of February 2011.  I had to wait a few weeks and pick up a second-hand copy, the sleeve of which was slightly damaged as the original owner had removed the blue sticker advising that the single came with a download code for some live tracks….oh, and the original owner had also used the download!

The b-side was another Edwyn only composition:-

mp3: Edwyn Collins – To Die For

The lyric opens with more than a little nod to Night Fever by The Bee Gees.  As with the b-side from last week, it feels like a song that was written and recorded some years previously, before Edwyn was struck down, with his voice and range being akin to earlier in his career.  It’s quite an interesting number, and if it actually is one that was a few years old, then there must be some sort of tale attached as to why it languished in the vaults.

JC