Simple Minds: Empires and Dance

I put this CD on this morning, just as the Boy was starting to screw up his face and his complexion was heading scarlet-wards. Then something changed.

I started doing my Jim Kerr dance (what my friend Steve, from Selwyn, used to call the dodging-beer-cans-from-the-audience dance) for him. Twenty years ago I used to think I did it quite well, but nowadays I don't bend so much at the knees. Nevertheless, picture for yourself something a bit like this, only in our living room:

Observing me closely, the Boy's face turned to something a bit like this:

I only got the CD about seven weeks ago. Bizarre really, since I love the albums that followed it so much. But the clincher for me was seeing that it was only £3.98 on Amazon — half the price of the same album on iTunes, and you get uncompressed versions with lyric sheet.

So this was the first time I'd listened to it without trying to work or answer emails at the same time. I loved it. There were a couple of tracks in particular, This Fear of Gods and Capital City, that sounded like they could become firm favourites. Derek Forbes, bass hero.

And on Twist/Run/Repulsion the familiar device of using a female French speaking voice, possibly from a language learning tape, to add that je ne sais quoi — see also Pere Ubu's The Book is on the Table and Yellow Magic Orchestra's La Femme Chinoise.

I think I'm going to have to rip this album into iTunes and listen to it some more.

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Comments

[mym]

"picture for yourself something a bit like this"

ahahahahahahaha

I seem to recall (actually it's the only thing about him, other than that he sang for Simple Minds, that I *can* recall) that Mr Kerr was supposed to be the possessor of an enormous penis.