'Mary's Prayer' vs 'Tinseltown in the Rain'

[Insouciant Western People]

Indeed, both great songs. The Blue Nile edged it for me, but it was close.

As a trivia aside, when I was fifteen Ged Grimes from Danny Wilson came to my high school to do a music workshop with my class. Nice guy.

[Jimbly]

Blue Nile by a fucking mile. Danny Wilson, a couple of good songs at best. Blue Nile too many to mention

[Insouciant Western People]

Blue Nile too many to mention

Hats is one of only three or four albums I know that I would call absolutely perfect.

[Jimbly]

Mary's Prayer is easily the better of the two.

Daft Bugger

[Jimbly]

Mary's Prayer is easily the better of the two.

Daft Bugger

I really do like Tinseltown but Mary's Prayer is a pop classic.

I like Mary's Prayer fine but cant hear "pop classic" at all

[Beno]

I could happily live without either. Blue Nile are the most overrated band ever though so 'Mary's Prayer' got my vote.

[Jimbly]

Radiohead

are the most overrated band ever

[The Modernist]

I did like that Blue Nile song, it had a certain moody splendour. Later I realised that all their songs were variants on that same song: bass, synth washes and lyrics revolving around trains..neon..rain and so on.
Never liked the Danny Wilson one, it's the kind of thing people call perfect pop but it just sounds bland to me.

[RcL]

I like both. These songs came out when I was about 18 or 19. And I'm Scottish of course.

But while the DW track makes me smile, tap my foot and feel nostalgic for student unions and a complicated love life, the Blue Nile track has a tear in my eye by the middle of the second verse. And it's that lyric that's worthy of Fagen, though point taken about the sameiness of much of Buchanan's lyrics - though that works for me - the recurring, simple motifs of the parade, the night lights, the passing trains and cars, the man watching from a window and the 'ordinary girl' who might redeem him.

Both Buchanan and Gary Clark of Danny Wilson ended up in LA - Buchanan dated a starlet or two and retired hurt to Glasgow; Clark is there still, I believe, pumping out hits and living the good life.

Both were / are fine singers but Buchanan has one of those natural, emotive voices that, though it doesn't work for us all, really tugs at the emotional fundaments. Lots of tricks with the Blue Nile though - plaintive brass, layers of strings, yearning and filmic imagery, processional backings, percussion with echo, sound effects. Not their best song, but the best to see all these tricks at work is O Lolita, best of their non album tracks.

[Neil Jung]

I adore The Blue Nile so you can guess how I voted.

[funky_nomad]

Blue Nile by a fucking mile. Danny Wilson, a couple of good songs at best. Blue Nile too many to mention

Is the correct answer.

[La Denim]

I like both. These songs came out when I was about 18 or 19. And I'm Scottish of course.

But while the DW track makes me smile, tap my foot and feel nostalgic for student unions and a complicated love life, the Blue Nile track has a tear in my eye by the middle of the second verse. And it's that lyric that's worthy of Fagen, though point taken about the sameiness of much of Buchanan's lyrics - though that works for me - the recurring, simple motifs of the parade, the night lights, the passing trains and cars, the man watching from a window and the 'ordinary girl' who might redeem him.

So true. Roddy, you introduced me to The Blue Nile when you put Dowtown Lights on a compilation tape you made me and I've loved them ever since. The atmospherics and motifs resonate deeply with me.

[Wolfie]

lumme - dead heat

[The Prof]

Aye - both shite.