Thursday, May 8, 2014

All Is Quiet Where Angels Fear...



I was listening earlier today to the Festive 50 from 1982 and as I was listening I was thinking how many of them were bona fide chart hits and it turned out that a fairly large number of them were including "Mad World", "Straight To Hell", "Only You" and, of course, "Come On Eileen".

There were also a large amount of tracks that should have been hits that weren't, most notably the track that made it to Number 10. The Wild Swans' "Revolutionary Spirit" can easily take pride of place alongside the best songs of their Scouse peers, The Teardrop Explodes and Echo And The Bunnymen. Released on Zoo Records, with the Bunnymen's Pete de Freitas on drums and future Woodentop Rolo McGinty on bass, The Wild Swans' debut single received great (and well deserved) critical acclaim but no chart success. Despite being championed by Peel, Kid Jensen, Janice Long and their fellow musicians the band split in '82 with some members joining Care and The Lotus Eaters. Despite only the one single at the time there influence far outweighed their sales.

It would be another 6 years before their debut album appeared, with the classic "Bringing Home The Ashes", which was criminally ignored upon it's release. Great, timeless songs that gained them a cult following in Germany, The USA and especially The Philippines where their wonderful melodies and Paul Simpson's gorgeous voice seemed to strike a chord with music fans.

The Revolutionary Spirit

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