SUNSHINE ON LEITH
Silly Scots. It wasn’t until later that I heard the Proclaimers’ debut record, This Is the Story. The first lines of the first song went like this: “I’ve been so sad / Since you said my accent was bad.” Called “Throw the ‘R’ Away,” in one sense it’s a love song–the singer has been insulted by an English girl, and agonizes over the distance his brogue puts between them. But the song turns around, as the singer touches on the broader political issues involved (“You say that if I want to get ahead / the language I use should be left for dead / It doesn’t please the ear”) and casually mentions the racist implications: “You just refuse to hear.” The refusal to hear, of course, leaves the singer–and his race–mute. That’s a special hell for a writer:
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The Proclaimers, I found out, were Charlie and Craig Reid, who grew up in a working-class town above Edinburgh called Auchtermuchty (which I bet is pronounced “ooter-mooty”). Like many their age–they look about 25 now–they got into music through punk and even had a punk band, called improbably enough Black Flag. But the Reids’ roots turn out not to be in punk at all, but in American country and R & B, and of course folk. Obvious reference points for the Proclaimers are Bragg on the one hand, for their thorough politicization and bluntness, and traditional folk practitioners on the other, like the Kingston Trio, from whom one assumes that the Reids got their call-and-response vocals, hootenanny shouts, and occasional dips into an appalling sentimentality.
The song “Sunshine on Leith” genuinely reaches. On paper it’s a slovenly piece of work–and the Reids even print the words: “My tears are drying, my tears are drying / Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou.” At the end it becomes clear that Leith is the pair’s birthplace, and the song is a standard “I’m in love and happy to ever have been born” tearjerker. The strange thing is that it works, and in an enveloping, stirring way: the lilt in the brothers’ voices as they utter the title words is a gorgeous thing to hear.
