Back in April 2019, I featured a song by Another Pretty Face, in which I explained why a really popular group had never graced the pages of TVV.
“I’m not a fan of The Waterboys which is why they haven’t ever appeared on these pages, nor indeed the pages of the old blog. The anthemic folk/pop combo, fronted by Mike Scott enjoyed massive success at the tail end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s. Their biggest hit was The Whole of The Moon, which had been a moderate hit on initial release in 1985 but went all the way to #2 in 1991 when it was reissued to support a Greatest Hits package. It’s a song I never took to and at this late stage in my life never will.
“My better half was a huge fan of the band at the time when we first hooked up, and so I was exposed a fair bit to 1988’s Fishermen’s Blues, but it always felt to me like the sort of record that would be enjoyed by a tourist (most likely from North America) who wanted something a little bit Celtic (with a hard ‘C’) to remind him of a holiday round these parts.”
Mike Scott was part of Another Pretty Face prior to forming The Waterboys, which is why I was able to refer to that band in the way I did. But we’re reached the stage in the alphabetical rundown where I have to bow down to the inevitable. One of the band’s songs appears on the Big Gold Dreams box set. Here’s the accompanying blurb:-
Mike Scott’s Another Pretty Face eventually morphed into The Waterboys whose debut single on Scott’s own Chicken Jazz label announced a more panoramic sound that would ebb and flow with assorted musical influences over the decades.
Scott’s homage to Patti Smith set the tone for a series of records that mixed spiritual roots with epic productions that hit the zeitgeist with the questing euphoria of ‘The Whole Of The Moon’.
Overseeing numerous line-up changes, Scott stripped things back to incorporate Irish traditional music influences for 1998’s ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ album. Assorted solo wanderings followed before Scott picked up The Waterboys name once more for albums including the WB Yeats inspired ‘An Appointment With Mr Yeats’ and 2017’s ‘Out Of All This Blue’.
mp3: The Waterboys – A Girl Called Johnny
This actually just about made the charts when released in April 1983, getting as high as #80 in an era when the Top 100 was published. Doesn’t do anything for me, though.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 