fisherman's blues

The Waterboys relocated to Ireland and immersed themselves in traditional Celtic music to create this sweeping folk rock tour de force.  After the artistic triumph of 'This is the Sea', Karl Wallinger left the band to form World Party.   Scott considers 'This is the Sea'  "the creative peak of my life thus far, and the song itself was the top of that particular mountain...When I got up there and looked at the landscape ahead I could see a new land beckoning, one in which, instead of me imagining the record and then making it according to my blueprint, the musicians would concoct their own parts and play spontaneously in a spirit of freedom, and a different kind of energy would be channelled. This is what led to 'Fisherman's Blues'."

Mike Scott and  violinist Steve Wickham went to Dublin to pursue a new direction for the band. They would eventually decide to stay there and record their new album.  The sessions took place over two year at Windmill Lane Studio in Dublin and at Spiddal House in Galway, where Scott was living.  Mike Scott, Vinnie Killduff, Bob Johnston & John Dunford all shared production duties and the expanded lineup of the band featured:  Mike Scott on vocals, guitar, piano, hammond organ, drums, and bouzouki; Anthony Thistlethwaite on saxophone, mandolin, harmonica, and hammond organ; Steve Wickham and Charlie Lennon on violin; Trevor Hutchinson on bass guitar and double bass; Roddy Lorimer on trumpet; Colin Blakey on piano, flute, and border horn; Vinnie Kilduff on guitar; Noel Bridgeman on tambourine and congas; Mairtín O'Connor on accordion; Alec Finn and Brendan O'Regan on bouzouki; Paraig Stevens on bells; Kevin Wilkinson, Peter McKinney, Dave Ruffy, Jay Dee Daugherty, and Fran Breen on drums; with Tomás Mac Eoin, Jenne Haan, Ruth Nolan, Rachel Nolan, and The Abergavenny Male Voice Choir on vocals.  

Scott recalls:  "We didn’t do demos. We just played. And I didn’t remix anything for the box set because the desk mixes from the night were always superb. We had a great engineer, so it all sounded great. It would spoil it to remix it, really... It was an incredibly creative time for The Waterboys, and I’m happy that it still has a currency. The 'Fisherman’s Blues' era was some of the best music we made, and think some of the albums since haven’t been as good as that. I don’t count Mr. Yeats; I think Mr. Yeats is a top-line Waterboys album, one of the top three or four we’ve ever made. But I do feel that some of the other albums were not as good as Fisherman’s Blues, so I think it’s fair ...  If there was anything we did think about it was the Pogues; they were just breaking through at that time. We really liked their combination of instruments with the tin whistle and accordion. At that time we didn’t have those instruments, but we really liked the mix of a punky beat and these very authentic, old-sound instruments. The voice of those instruments was memory. I could hear the past of great cities into those instruments. Our version was fiddle and mandolin. I could hear it there as well. There was the sound of America too in those instruments."

'Fisherman's Blues' charted at number seventy-six in the US, sixty-seven in Ireland, eighteen in Sweden, fifteen in New Zealand, thirteen in the UK, and seven in Norway.  It became the best selling album of the Waterboys career, being certified Gold in the UK.  This month the band released a seven disk box set featuring one hundred and twenty-one songs from the sessions plus another unreleased eighty-five songs.  



http://www.mikescottwaterboys.com/















'Fisherman's Blues' 
full album: 



01 00:00 "Fisherman's Blues"
02 04:16 "We Will Not Be Lovers"
03 11:17 "Strange Boat"
04 14:17 "World Party"
05 18:14 "Sweet Thing"
06 25:25 "Jimmy Hickey's Waltz"
07 27:29 "And a Bang on the Ear"
08 34:54 "Has Anybody Here Seen Hank"
09 38:10 "When Will We Be Married"
10 41:08 "When Ye Go Away"
11 44:50 "Dunford's Fancy"

the waterboys

The Waterboys came together as Mike Scott was pouring his overflowing heart into solo sessions that expanded into the dramatic poetry of their eponymous debut.  Scott recounts the band's genesis in the sleevenotes of the reissue:    "I began recording this music at Christmas 1981. I was living in Wembley and was still a member of a mostly Scottish band called Funhouse. Thinking of striking out on my own, I took a bunch of songs and my newly purchased Danelectro "Bellzouki" twelve string guitar to a little 8-track studio in Islington, North London called Redshop. And "red shop" is exactly what it was - a red painted storefront, an empty shop within and some stairs at the rear leading to a little funky bright-lit basement studio. I asked the engineer - a gentle wizard called Jim Preen - if he had a drum machine. No, but he did have some pre-recorded drum loops. I chose a couple of these and started recording on top of them, playing everything myself. In a few hours we'd recorded "December", "The Three Day Man" and "Bury My Heart" and - though I didn't quite realise it then - I'd set the direction of what would become The Waterboys for the next four years.   I left Funhouse shortly afterwards. Around this time I was friends with an English bohemian musician called Nikki Sudden who came to my flat one day and played me his new record. On one track was a fantastic roaring sax solo. I had to find the guy who played it and finally tracked him down. His name was Anthony Thistlethwaite and he was staying in the house of a girl known as Lizard, in the World's End part of King's Road. Anthony and I hit it off straight away and he came and did a few shows with me in a short-lived new group I started, The Red And The Black. He played great sax on a new song, "A Girl Called Johnny" and knew a terrific drummer called Kevin Wilkinson, who was soon in The Red And The Black too.   In Spring 1982 my record company Ensign packed me off to work for a week with the producer Rupert Hine in his studio in the English countryside. Rupert had a tough job because I already knew I was my own best producer. But he did some great work anyway, recording "A Girl Called Johnny" and mixing some of my Redshop tracks. His engineer - another gentle wizard called Steven W. Tayler - went on to mix much of the first album and "A Pagan Place".   Meanwhile I kept working on my own in London, recording "Savage Earth Heart", "Gala", "The Girl In The Swing" and others. By this time I was living on Aldridge Road Villas, near the Portobello Road. I had a cowboy hat and a manager who looked like Rod Stewart. Towards the end of '82 I expanded the recording sessions - still at Redshop - to include Kevin's drums and Anthony's sax and mandolin. Violin was added to the sound too, courtesy of Tim Blanthorn who'd played with a Liverpool band I'd once produced called The Last Chant. These November '82 sessions were a watershed in my writing and music-making. I learned how to work with real drums, to arrange and layer the sound with acoustic and electric guitars, pianos and lead instruments. Over a dozen songs got recorded including "I Will Not Follow", "Red Army Blues", "All The Things She Gave Me" and "The Thrill Is Gone".   When Ensign wanted to put out the first album in 1983, they still expected me to be a solo artist. I had my own ideas. I wanted a band and now I wanted it to be called The Waterboys. The only Waterboy I'd found for sure was Anthony (Kevin Wilkinson was committed to another group), but I knew I'd find the others somewhere. We put out the record in the Summer of that year. Eight songs were chosen from the dozens that had been recorded, the selection a product of deliberations between Ensign and myself. Some songs were held over for the second album ('A Pagan Place'), but many remained unreleased or only surfaced briefly as 'b' sides. Some came out in 1994 on 'The Secret Life Of The Waterboys'." 

'The Waterboys' features Mike Scott on vocals, piano, guitar, 12-string "bellzouki" guitar, bass guitar, and mandolin; Anthony Thistlethwaite on bass, mandolin, and drums; Kevin Wilkinson on drums; Delahaye on organ; Nick Linden on bass guitar and background vocals; Norman Rodger on bass guitar; Ray Massey on drums; and Stephen W Tayler on bass, keyboards, engineering, and mixing.  'The Waterboys' never charted; but it charted the course the band would take for the next few years.  Kevin Wilkinson eventually became the drummer and Karl Wallinger would join the band after the album was completed.  





http://www.mikescottwaterboys.com/








"December" – 6:48
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpif53KdvI



"A Girl Called Johnny" was inspired by Patti Smith.  The single charted at number eighty in the UK. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx7Lw8y201w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL5L5Y61Jyk



"The Three Day Man"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIGhpYiNbCc



"Gala" 
https://myspace.com/mikescottwaterboys/music/song/gala-unedited-2002-digital-remaster-34509657-35905230
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH4LzRzdgag



"Where are You Now When I Need You?" – 5:06
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyeVXYANB7k



"I Will Not Follow" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b51rBaKRNtM




"The Girl in the Swing" – 4:27
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjqrWGFm8gs





"Savage Earth Heart"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiid56sEe_I




bonus tracks:

"Something Fantastic" – 3:12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRG6O82KoUk









'The Waterboys'
full album:

https://myspace.com/mikescottwaterboys/music/album/the-waterboys-9636637

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Waterboys/The+Waterboys




All songs written by Mike Scott, unless otherwise noted.


"December" – 6:48
"A Girl Called Johnny" – 3:57
"The Three Day Man" – 4:08
"Gala" (Unedited) – 9:31
"Where are You Now When I Need You?" – 5:06
"I Will Not Follow" – 5:18
"It Should Have Been You" – 4:30
"The Girl in the Swing" – 4:27
"Savage Earth Heart" – 6:40
"Something Fantastic" – 3:12
"Ready for the Monkeyhouse" – 3:59
"Another Kind of Circus" – 4:05
"A Boy in Black Leather" – 7:04
"December" (Original 8-track mix) – 6:49
"Jack of Diamonds" – 0:50

this is the sea

released on september 16, 1985, the waterboys' this is the sea was a revelation for me. the music was so expansive and uncomplicated; and the lyrics were at once thoughtful and spiritual. every song was poignant and triumphant. it was like being in church, a delicious church not made with hands. it was the last waterboys album to include karl wallinger and the first with steve wickham, who led the band to ireland and a more traditional sound on their next release fisherman's blues.

www.mikescottwaterboys.com

'the whole of the moon' was their biggest hit. mike scott says the subject of the song is a composite of several people, including c. s. lewis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TON3PORRDQ



i pictured a rainbow
you held it in your hands
i had flashes
but you saw the plan
i wandered out in the world for years
while you just stayed in your room
i saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon

you were there in the turnstiles
with the wind at your heels
you stretched for the stars
and you know how it feels
to reach too high
too far
too soon
you saw the whole of the moon

i was grounded
while you filled the skies
i was dumbfounded by truth
you cut through lies
i saw the rain dirty valley
you saw brigadoon
i saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon

i spoke about wings
you just flew
i wondered I guessed and I tried
you just knew
i sighed
... but you swooned!
i saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon

with a torch in your pocket
and the wind at your heels
you climbed on the ladder
and you know how it feels
to get too high
too far too soon
you saw the whole of the moon
the whole of the moon!

unicorns and cannonballs 
palaces and piers 
trumpets towers and tenements 
wide oceans full of tears 
flags rags ferryboats 
scimitars and scarves 
every precious dream and vision underneath the stars 
you climbed on the ladder with the wind in your sails 
you came like comet blazing your trail 
too high too far too soon you saw the whole of the moon

owing a lot to van morrison's 'sweet thing', the song 'this is the sea' was originally written with twenty verses. this video features that title track and some pretty gnarly waves:

these things you keep 
you'd better throw them away 
you wanna turn your back on your soulless days 
once you were tethered and now you are free 
once you were tethered well now you are free 
that was the river this is the sea! 

now if you're feelin' weary 
if you've been alone too long 
maybe you've been suffering from a few too many plans that have gone wrong 
and you're trying to remember how fine your life used to be 
running around banging your drum like it's 1973 
well that was the river this is the sea! wooo! 

now you say you've got trouble
you say you've got pain 
you say've got nothing left to believe in 
nothing to hold on to nothing to trust nothing but chains 
you've been scouring your conscience raking through your memories 
scouring your conscience raking through your memories 
but that was the river this is the sea yeah! 

now I can see you wavering 
as you try to decide 
you've got a war in your head and it's tearing you up inside 
you're trying to make sense of something that you just don't see 
trying to make sense now and you know you once held the key 
but that was the river and this is the sea! yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah! 

now I hear there's a train 
it's coming on down the line 
it's yours if you hurry you've got still enough time 
and you don't need no ticket and you don't pay no fee 
no you don't need no ticket you don't pay no fee 
because that was the river and this is the sea! behold the sea.

'This is the Sea'
full album:


1. "Don't Bang the Drum" -- 0:00
2. "The Whole of the Moon" -- 6:47
3. "Spirit" -- 11:47
4. "The Pan Within" -- 13:37
5. "Medicine Bow" -- 19:51
6. "Old England" -- 22:36
7. "Be My Enemy" -- 28:08
8. "Trumpets" -- 32:26
9. "This Is the Sea" -- 36:03