Del Amitri
Del Amitri

The day I discovered the Del’s debut album feels like another life now. These days, when the lines on my face say more about me than the lines in my songs, it’s hard to remember being that kid who was confused by his find. The setting was the Dundee HMV store. It was a store I spent a lot of time in, just looking. Sometimes buying, if I had any money. When I didn’t it was because they, or some other Dundee record store had taken it from me. I met my first girlfriend in this store. She was introduced to me by her sister, a friend of mine. That was a disaster. I fell hard. I probably deserved to be dumped from a great height but I didn’t deserve the way she treated me. The first song I wrote which meant something, the first song I was proud of, was about her. It made my Mum cry. So it must have been good.

A few musical discoveries confused me around this time. I was young and naive. I would browse the same artists on every opportunity I had. Fleetwood Mac, Queen, James Taylor, Bowie, Kate Bush, Del Amitri, ELO. We didn’t have YouTube in those days to watch music videos and live shows or Spotify to suggest new music we may like or Wikipedia to learn from and refer to. We had to rely on other means to reveal a band’s history or discography. Those were the days of mystique. Of separation of artist over actor. Of persona over person. Bowie, not Jones. Mercury, not Bulsara.

Modernity brings with it many great technological advances. I can lie in bed and watch the Dels perform all hail blind love from their living rooms right there on my phone. It looks and sounds amazing - my own personal gig. And I love that. But the cost is that we lose the separation. And we lose part of the experience. We lose that magical hunt for the bootleg we know exists, or the b-side we’ve been told is amazing. We lose the quest to find even the most basic information about the artist. And, to some degree, we lose the mystery. It’s too easy to find out who they are. Where they are from. Where they went to school. What they look like without their makeup. But, worst of all, that they are human. That they are just like us.

I remember when Freddie Mercury died. I remember being awoken by the news on my radio alarm. It wasn’t 5:05 but it might as well have been. An enigma had left us. This alien entity, who was capable of lifting an entire stadium filled with people, using only his voice and a single hand, had returned to his home planet. And left me without the anticipation of more albums to come.

Those were the days of Bowie and Mercury. Those days are gone.

Having said this, Del Amitri appealed to me for other reasons. They were real. They were different. They really were human. They were mine. Justin and Iain were still very much the rock stars to me, but they felt closer to me. And their music certainly felt closer, the music was as human as they were. And it was mine.

But still, Wikipedia would be many years off, so believing that mostly-white album I held in my hand, a confused gaze decorating my face, was a Del Amitri album. There was no album name, just the band name. It looked very different to the others. The song names are less relatable to me. That cover art, what is it? Was I going to make the same mistake I made when I bought that Queensryche LP, thinking it was a Queen album, only to spend 20 minutes trying to persuade the manager to let me swap it for something else? [note: some things cannot be explained away by the naivety of youth, Wikipedia existence, or not!]

Getting home and playing the album confirmed nothing. Is that Justin’s voice? Seriously? What IS this? Am I going to like this? I can’t quite take it in.

I was hooked by Keepers. It’s an odd one. It’s in 6/8, a less common time signature for a pop song. But then, so is nothing ever happens. Of course I was going to like it. I’m not quite sure how so many lyrics can fit into 10 tracks, but they do. It’s rushed. It’s raw. But it’s unique and it’s flippin’ awesome. There are some hints of what was to come. Former Owner. What a song. It’s poetic. Majestic. But lyrically, more cryptic than much of their canon. However, the mood and subject matter are those which Justin would continue to craft and perfect over the coming years.

I had wanted to hear a track performed live from this album for many years. I shouted “KEEPERS” to Justin at 2 different gigs, each time being rewarded with a sneer. But then it’s the resentment I applaud. Of course, in 2014, I was finally rewarded for my patience with Hammering Heart! A slower version, but it was more than enough! And Justin finished the track with an expletive aimed at his younger self for deciding to cram so many words into that marathon of a song! Wait till you get a load of “no, surrender”, Justin!

This album is not one which I could relate to in the same way as the others. It’s certainly one of those I’ve kept closest for many years, because it is one of theirs, but it’s more my sonic wallpaper than my instruction manual. Either way, I thank them for this album as much as any other - this keeper is never letting go.