Mark E Nevin, self-branded ‘insensitive songwriter’, has black-rim glasses and big headphones. He sits by the window with bookshelves behind and to his right, and a painting hung on the wall to the left. ‘It is a French educational poster depicting a typical English house’ Mark explains (Masson & Co, Paris). Eddi ‘Sadenia’ Reader plays a squeezebox concertina in the video for the new album’s first single, ‘What’s Wrong With The World?’ But we know what she looks like from ‘Top Of The Pops’. But on the screenshot now she stands on the seafront with heaving waves behind her, and grey mountains along the far shore.
Mark: Hello Andy, nice to meet you, man. Hello Eddi, I can hear you, I can’t see you.
Eddi: I’m on my little phone, hang on. I don’t know where my computer is. I’ve come home and the place is just turned upside down. Let me figure it out. There I am. I can see me. Change settings – no. We’ll just continue. Where is your accent from?
Andrew: I’m from West Yorkshire. Are you doing a lot of press at the moment? Am I crammed in after Mojo?
Mark: No. Not today. We have been doing quite a bit. We’ve just come back from Japan where we did quite a bit so – you know, we’ve been busy.
Andrew: The Japanese connection was quite instrumental in Fairground Attraction reforming.
Mark: Yes. The place that we played thirty-five years ago – a place called ‘Club Quattro’, the Nagoya one (there are four ‘Club Quattro’ live music venues, the first in Shibuya, Tokyo, the one in Nagoya is the second, opening 29 June 1989), we were the first people to play there thirty-five years ago on their opening night, so when they had a thirty-fifth anniversary they asked Eddi if she’d do it, and she said ‘why don’t we do it all together, as Fairground Attraction?’ and they were absolutely delighted, very surprised and delighted by that, and that’s what we did.
Andrew: Congratulations on a fine album in Beautiful Happening, is this the second of a Million Kisses?
Mark: It is, yes. Taken as a slow seduction, y’know, you don’t want to rush things.
Eddi: Ha-Ha-Ha.
Andrew: A lot of history has happened since your hit single ‘Perfect’, as you sing it – ‘civilisations rise and fall…’, we’ve had Covid, 911, Tony Blair, an eclipse, the millennium.
Mark: It wasn’t our fault!
Eddi: I’m still trying to figure this camera out. It’s annoying me now!
Andrew: One of the benefits of such longevity, of living through those decades, is that we gain a sense of perspective, we can draw certain conclusions.
Mark: I don’t know about conclusions – but hanging in there, really, yeah, keeping a sense of humour, taking care of the people that you care about, and all that sort of thing, just trying to remain a human being in a world that’s increasingly – y’know, technology-heavy. I don’t have a secret. Have you got a secret, Eddi?
Eddi: I think, live in the moment. And do whatever the moment offers you. Figure it out, what your instinct wants. Basically, it was just so lovely to be reconnecting with Mark – he has a beautiful family, and I saw Roy and Simon and I felt kind-of in their company, very much like we were brothers and sister that have not seen each other for a long time (her voice softens with emotion). Mark has written some amazing new songs – so, it was like – let’s try this, it’ll be great, it’ll be wonderful ‘cos everybody’s ALIVE!!!
Mark: It makes it a lot easier!
Eddi: Yeah. We’re still here. And – why not?, before the end of our time, to get to the point where we’re all going ‘you know what, it was really great to play with you, and it was great to achieve what we achieved, and also still be able to reconcile and sit round the table, or sit and play guitar together and jam together. So that was the miracle for me, and then the other miracle was these amazing songs that Mark kind-of – I don’t know, I’ve had issues with how long do you have the athletic ability, well, that’s waning like a footballer, but a voice has still got sensibilities that are more about the emotional connection to the song, so I have to really actually love it before I can do something with it. And Mark’s just written quite a few themes that I think are absolutely for me, right now, at this age, and I think it’s… I think I was dribbling with anticipation getting to sing, getting to have a go at things like ‘Learning To Swim’…Haw!
Mark: Dribbling in a good way. A few more years before you begin dribbling generally. Haw-Haw-Haw.
Eddi: The songs are like biscuits, you know. They’re like delicious biscuits, you get them and you go Yum-Ahhhh!
Mark: I just had some Rich Tea Biscuits (he holds up an opened blue pack of biscuits). One of the things I was really looking forward to getting home from Japan was having some tea, dunking my Rich Tea Biscuit in it. I’ve just had some…
Eddi: Definitely. A good cup of tea. That’s what I wanted.
Andrew: I prefer good Scottish Shortbread.
Eddi: Oh yeah, nice. Aran-Milis in the Gaelic. And you guys have lots of good Yorkshire shortbread up there, don’t you?
Andrew: Are all the songs on Beautiful Happening written by Mark?
Eddi: Aye.
Mark: Yes. There’s a couple that I co-wrote, but they’re all – largely, mine.
Andrew: Roy Dodds played drums on several of the solo albums that you subsequently recorded, Eddi. He also owns London’s Driftwood Studios where Eddi has recorded.
Eddi: Roy Dodds. Yes, he has, definitely. I think – before I did the Robert Burns album (Eddi Reader Sings The Songs Of Robert Burns, 2003, Rough Trade RTRADECD097, which includes ‘Ae Fond Kiss’), which was a while back now, but yeah – I would always call on Roy, he’s irreplaceable as a drummer. I’ve tried other drummers. And there are some good ones, but Roy’s got this… amazing technique, his brushes, the way he hits the brush, the way he hits a snare with a brush, it sounds in-between a brush and a stick, so it’s like… nobody else I’ve heard can do that. Someone else will play with a brush and it sounds like a brush.
Mark: You said he’s got a ‘Steptoe & Son’ sort-of feel.
Eddi: (laughs) Yeah.
Mark: Which I think is true, in a really lovely way. And there’s a chemistry between the four of us, that you just can’t force. You play with other people, and no matter how good they are, there’s a kind-of chemistry that we stumbled on way back then when we locked together. I know that when I play guitar (his fingers play air guitar), Roy and Simon and me, we just become one unit, without trying to be, it’s just like that… and then Eddi just skates over it like a ballerina… a dribbling ballerina! (extended laughter).
Andrew: Simon Edwards plays the guitarrón which is a large Mexican bass guitar. Has he used exactly the same guitarrón throughout? If not, where would he go to obtain a replacement? I can’t imagine that E-Bay do it…? (he also plays, with Roy Dodds, on Eddi’s solo album Simple Soul, 2001, Rough Trade RTRADECD011)
Mark: He bought his original one from the classified ads in the back of a newspaper for £90. He then got a second one sent from Mexico after our sound man snapped the neck off the first one, after a gig in Denmark. Since we reformed he has bought another, better one, flown over from California. It is the poshest and most accurate one yet. He has started a bit of a trend in Japan, when we went over recently, we were met at the airport by a fan who had one with him! It is a very important part of the Fairground Attraction sound.
Andrew: Fairground Attraction is timeless in the proper sense of the word, in that you were never part of a trend or fashion. You are unique in that you sound as different now as you did back then.
Mark: (he sways from side to side in his revolving office chair)That was very conscious, y’know, back in the day when the people were sort-of programming Linn-drums and buying their DX7’s, we were completely at odds with that. Eddi and I were going around London with acoustic guitars, singing songs, and we had this purist kind of thing about songs and about performance, and so we put a band together that was against the zeitgeist, not in any sort of heavy sort way, but just kind-of like doing what we wanted, and we made sure that there were no signs on the record that were going to be dated, so that you can listen to The First Of A Million Kisses now and you don’t know if it was made yesterday or thirty-five years ago, because there’s nothing to put a time-stamp on it.
Andrew: There is a continuity there.
Eddi: There’s definitely a sound that’s created by the individuals, and I think these guys are much better than I remember them as well, I mean – they were always good, but they’re better now.
Mark: We have had a bit of practise.
Eddi: There’s definitely a bravery kick there, and a bit more kind-of spontaneity going on. I like that. That’s where I live – you know, in that world. Have a solo in the middle there, right in the minute that you’re in it.
Andrew: A Fairground is something that comes to town for a week of fun and excitement. Then it leaves. It’s not meant to last forever. Will this reunion persist?
Eddi: This one does. We’ve not fallen out, y’know. We’ve decided to do some shows together, and I think a lot of that is about – listen, we’re still around, this is who we were, and here’s some new ideas as well, and did you all make it through the Nineties – how was it for you? We’re just going with whatever is presented to us. If somebody says to us ‘do you want to go and tour Brazil?’ or whatever, and it makes sense and we can do it then we’ll have a go, you know?
Mark: I think a lot of… the thing is, in the music business, people get a band together with their mates, and the next thing is, they find themselves running some sort of huge business that they were never ever cut out to do or wanted to do. And it becomes a curse. Certainly, we felt kind-of like, it’s very difficult dealing with all that side of things the first time round, and it’s not something we want to be bogged down with now, particularly at this time of our lives, we want to take the most enjoyable aspects of playing together and then – that’s it. That’s what we’re doing. There are no expectations.
Eddi: Yeah, we’re going to do the tour. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be emotional. It was emotional in Japan. I couldn’t even get… never mind trying to sing, for god’s sake. Those guys were playing the song, Mark was playing the opening chords, and I’m – like, blubbering like a wreck. That dribbling stuff is just uncontrollable…
Mark: It’s a lot of the theme!
Eddi: Because I’m pretty emotional anyway. I’m an emotional person. Things can take my mind and I’m in that spiral for ages. Yesterday it’s my son who has an issue so I’m with that all day. So then it’s my husband’s got something to do, so I just get kind-of lost in whatever’s happening in the moment. So that when we were on stage in Japan, and Mark was playing the chords of ‘A Hundred Years Of Heartache’ – and, by the way, a lot of these songs seem to be talking to us, rather than us performing them, they seem to be saying to us, there’s a homecoming, there’s beauty in forgiveness, there’s a light in the darkness – you know? It seems to be that whatever comes through Mark is hitting me that way, and I’m feeling like it’s a conversation that we’re having musically. So when I’m standing onstage and he’s playing the chords of ‘A Hundred Years Of Heartache… are over now’, I’m like, ‘Oh my god!’
Mark: (he leans back in his swivel chair, his hands behind his head) Yes, I think it’s the same for the audience, a few people in Japan were sending us things saying ‘I saw you back then and I’m seeing you now, and I think of all the time that’s gone between, and all the ups and downs of my life, the happy moments and the sad, the losses and all that, and it’s such a huge moment to see you together,’ and I think – in a way, particularly because people know that we fell out badly, that to see us being friends again now, it’s important to them, and it’s a bit like, yeah, your parents who got divorced thirty-five years ago, getting remarried. And it’s really really as great a moment for certain members of the audience as it is for us. So, it’s incredibly emotional.
Andrew: I like the optimism of the title-track. There’s so much doom and gloom around, it’s good to hear that positivism. Yes, life can be beautiful. While the song ‘A Hundred Years Of Heartache’ seems to be referencing Fairground Attraction ‘coming home’ in the line ‘some things are never over, some things just come round and round again.’
Mark: Yeah. And the second part of that is that sometimes, sometimes something really ends. And I remember that because I had the first part of that song, those lines, for quite a while, and then when I came up with the second bit I remember having a feeling of really physical reaction. Sometimes, some things REALLY end! Agh! ‘Cos they do, of course. That is the nature of life. Things repeat, and sometimes they end, then they are reborn and Turn Turn Turn and everything… so, yeah, that song is a really… we opened the set with it out there, and it was very powerful for us, and for the audience…
Eddi: Definitely. The other thing is – I’m learning the songs quite quickly, so we only had – what? Since maybe January was it, that we were told…? I don’t remember, but whenever it was, these songs came tumbling into my life, so I don’t have any connection with how Mark found them or where they’ve come from, or how or when they happened to him. But the conversation that’s happening to him internally, he externalises it in song, and then people like me have an opportunity to express it… so I’m not really clear about how connected the theme is to what’s happening to us, but I do know that I can make it connect in my head, with what’s happening to us. And so it feels like a little advice from someone far away, but it’s coming out of me, so it seems like I’m soothing myself with them too, and hopefully whoever is listening gets off on it. It’s the same as anything, when you’re singing a song at a party you just want to fill the room with the joy that you feel about it. And anybody can do that. It’s kinda easy to do that if you feel joy about something. So, finding my way into these songs has been interesting because my friendship with these guys seemed cauterised, and I didn’t have any say in that, so I was determined to say ‘I’m open, the door is open, let’s be what we are to each other, which is important characters in our story. When we came out – in 1988, nobody else was playing acoustic guitars at that time, everybody had electronica – and that was great, there was lots of invention, but there was something about me and Mark that we liked the immediacy of a song, you know? I like the fact that you could tell a story through a song. And Mark likes the fact that you could… I mean, he wasn’t writing ‘Ooo-Ooo-Baby Baby’ and adapting it to a drumbeat – do you know what I mean? He was writing stories. And the stories were incredibly attached to the human condition. And I think that’s why it spoke to quite a few people. In fact – in the UK, double-platinum’s worth of people bought it on that level!
Andrew: The Fairground Attraction single ‘Perfect’ knocked S-Express off the number one position (14 May 1988).
Eddi: I thought it was Yazz! I was pretty sure it was Yazz. I’m prepared to have a bet about that!
Mark: No. It was S-Express. I remember it so clearly. Because I was watching the TV chart countdown with my Mum & Dad, and the DJ announced, ‘and down from last week’s number one, S-Express,’ and then the second part was that my Dad said ‘I was wrong when I said you should’ve got a proper job, son.’ So I remember the S-Express as part of that statement.
Eddi: What is the S-Express song?
Andrew: A track made up out of samples.
Mark: ‘Theme From S-Express’. It’s the antithesis of us. We were the opposite of it, really. In Australia when ‘Perfect’ went to number one, it knocked off that song (‘You’re The Voice’ by John Farnham) – ‘you’re the voice, we’re the voice’ (he sings), what’s that song? Do-do-do-do-do, John somebody, he was Australian, and it was a massive Australian number one for weeks – sixteen weeks or something. And he was ‘Australian Of The Year’, and we knocked him off number one! We were both on the RCA label so it was quite embarrassing for the people at RCA in Australia because we’d knocked this sort-of untouchable icon off number one – much to their horror!
Eddi: And there Mark has revealed a little window into the kind of insanity that is the music business. It becomes a competition, a competition against yourself so that when you’re number one, anything after or below that is useless. It was a traumatic event, you know. Quite a tsunami. You’re suddenly in competition in this fearful kind of environment which, well ‘you gotta do this or else you’ll…, you’ve got a hit, strike the iron while the iron’s hot,’ and all that. And it became absolutely a loud noise which probably infected every aspect of… why you would choose to do something like this. Why would you choose to actually sit down and write a beautiful story about people meeting in a Council Estate and falling in love like a Romeo & Juliet when all around them was disastrous, and there it was, the jewellery in the junkshop of life, and it was to do with love, and it was to do with finding a truth in that, that there is… like Mark has just written with ‘Beautiful Happening’, in the darkness there is light. There is something in it, there’s something in it that’s much more sublime than you realise. And I think that we were doing… I was certainly singing those songs because I… I, I, I loved to spread that word. I’m not an evangelical person, but, well – maybe I am, I don’t know? But I do enjoy letting people know how good something is. I certainly couldn’t do it with my own writing, or I couldn’t at that time, I was far too insecure about that, but somebody standing in front of me that’s just written an amazing song! I mean, it’s like, imagine Cole Porter standing in front of you with ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye I Die A Little’, and him going ‘I can’t get a deal’, I’m like ‘GIMMIE THAT SONG!!!’ I want to tell the world. That’s the way it was. Then it became a bit more pressurising for us – maybe we were a bit too sensitive for it?
Mark: As I’ve said before, it’s like we went out for a drive in a Morris Minor and we accidentally took a left turn onto a Formula One Racetrack! ‘Ooo-ooh! What’re we doing on ‘ere?’ That’s what it was really like.
Eddi: There is that, although I would never feel as though I was a Morris Minor, I was feeling more like a Zeppelin balloon flying high above all of it…
Mark: A Ford Zephyr Six then, metallic blue?
Eddi: Zephyr? No, they’re good. I like Zephyrs. We were that. No, but the point is too, how we see ourselves. We were a little bit at odds with the competition that was set up. So you’re doomed to failure. If you go to number sixteen, that wasn’t as good as number eight, if you go to number thirty-two that’s even worse. It doesn’t matter that you sold three-million copies, and at that time people did buy records! – now you can be number one with sixteen sales. But then it was more about actual physical sales. They had an industry wrapped around it, with distributors and shopkeepers and promotion-people so there was a whole thing that had to be… the musicians, and what they needed, would be on the bottom of food-chain. We are kinda seeing it turned around a bit now, that the musicians own their own work, the musicians talk directly to…
Mark: The bloke from Spotify owns everybody’s work! But anyway… we’ll let Andy get a word in edgewise. He’s waiting here. Go on, Andy, ask us a question.
Eddi: Hang on a minute. Just to conclude and finish. I think it is turning around, so that – yeah, there are people like Spotify, they will be regulated eventually – they will be, it’s the Gold Rush, y’know, it’s lawless at the minute, but the deal is, musicians will always be born and writers will always be born, and they will always create, and there will always be people ready to exploit it, so we have to protect them – and we will, and I think it’s got better now, ‘cos we can play our music and directly speak to an audience, and have the audience directly communicate with us. That is good. Spotify is an anomaly.
Andrew: On the new album, Beautiful Happening, the track ‘Sing Anyway’ is about the power of music as a healing force.
Mark: Absolutely, however bad, keep on keeping on, really.
Andrew: And the track ‘Learning To Swim’ is not about swimming, but about overcoming your hesitation and having self-confidence in your own ability.
Mark: Yes. In a way, I’ve always had that thing with songwriting. My Mum used to read me the parables from the bible when I was a boy and I used to love the feeling you got when a little story had a nugget of wisdom in there, and I’ve always tried to write songs that had something like that.
Eddi: It’s great to meet a songwriter who is that conscientious about writing songs. Just from my perspective, it’s wonderful to see that.
Andrew: Another of the changes that have taken place during the intervening years is that there are no longer B-sides, a single is just a stream. Whereas your interim album, Ay Fond Kiss (1990), was made up of earlier B-side covers. Patsy Cline’s ‘Walking After Midnight’, Sam Cooke’s ‘You Send Me’ with a tasteful bass, a samba sway to Lennon-McCartney’s ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’, and a near-acapella take on ‘Mystery Train’ from the Elvis ‘Sun’ years. The selection an artist makes of songs they cover, betrays their roots and influences.
Mark: We used to like doing the B-sides.
Eddi: Yes, that’s the way it is now. You can hear a song. I can say I want to hear ‘Dinah’ by Louis Armstrong from 1930 on Okeh Records, and I can go online and see it, get it, hear it, experience it. I can get the Boswell Sisters, I can get Paul McCartney. I can get everything that I want, and I can get it just at the touch of a button. But there’s something about playing live that you can’t replicate – even with the Abba AI. You can’t actually replicate what it’s like to sing a song directly at somebody, or to sit in the middle of an auditorium with an orchestra playing at you. A computer cannot do that, there’s nothing like it… I just don’t believe it. There’s something really wonderful about… I don’t know, an eighty-year-old woman singing a song that she learned at her granny’s knee, those things are vital, and telling stories is vital in song.
Mark: When we did the B-sides, we’d say ‘let’s do a B-side,’ and Eddi had lots of songs, things like ‘Jock O’Hazeldean’ or ‘Ay Fond Kiss’, those lovely Scottish songs I’d never heard of before, and it was great for us to discover them and find some way of playing them, it was interesting, and then there was the version of ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret?’ – the Beatles song, that seems to be one of the most popular songs on Spotify that we did, strangely. But that was good fun. It was a good opportunity to have a bit… to play a bit, and be a little less… to take some risks, you know.
Eddi: I think that was quite a good charge, the three-&-a-half minute and two-&-a-half minute song, and then the colouration at the back, you would turn the record over and there would be a little kind-of package, really – a little opener for us through music, and I think – yeah, we can still do that…
Mark: We will. I’m sure we will. One of the things as well about the B-sides – I don’t know if you remember this, Eddi, we had this kind of thing where we had one song on each of the singles that was just you and one of us. We had ‘Mystery Train’ on the first, which was just you and Roy…
Eddi: Oh yeah, that’s right!
Mark: And then there was ‘Trying Times’ with just you and Simon. And ‘Ay Fond Kiss’ was just you and me. And each of those three records were first takes – the only time we ever played them were on those records.
Eddi: Well, you’ve got a great memory, Mark. I’m telling ya! That’s fantastic. I do remember that, I do remember something about that. Wow! I don’t think I’ve heard ‘Trying Times’ for years.
Andrew: Was the Patsy Cline cover your choice, Eddi?
Mark: We did ‘Walking After Midnight’ which was one of Eddi’s favourites, wasn’t it? That you used to sing.
Eddi: At the time, yes (she sings the opening lines of the song).
Andrew: And you did Sam Cooke.
Eddi: I love Sam Cooke, yeah. ‘You Send Me’. Actually, a lot of that was to do with the movie Sweet Dreams (the 1985 Patsy Cline biopic) with Jessica Lange and Ed Harris, doing the Patsy Cline story. They played ‘You Send Me’ in that a lot ‘cos Patsy Cline loved it, and then I fell in love with listening to Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits. Because I got it after watching the movie. And then…
Mark: I like that song because Aretha Franklin did a great version of ‘You Send Me’. That’s when I first knew it.
Eddi: Ah, lovely. And I think Brian (Kennedy), the Irish singer, was included, wasn’t he, Mark?
Mark: What it was, during encores we often used to do ‘You Send Me’, and Brian would come on – ‘cos he’d be our support act, and he’d sing it with you. And it was very nice.
Andrew: Mark, you co-wrote songs with Morrissey for his Kill Uncle album (March 1991). Was he difficult to work with?
Mark: Yeah, he’s quite a strange character, and it was kind-of awkward… a lot of… he never quite – he was very shy, and he’d turn up at my house sometimes, unannounced, and say ‘hello’ (in faint voice), and just come in for a cup of tea and sit there and hardly say anything, and you’d just be sort-of chatting away to fill up the awkward silence. And it was kind-of like that. He’s less like that now – as far as I know, I’ve not seen him for years. It was quite an odd thing. But at the time – really, I was so wounded from the break-up of Fairground Attraction, and though everyone was going ‘isn’t it great, you’re doing this with Morrissey’, and I was lucky to have got that chance, I wasn’t so… I was aching at the time, particularly because we recorded that album at Hook End Manor (in Oxfordshire), which was where we’d broken up. So really, when I think back to those days, it was quite a painful time.
Andrew: What kind of biscuits does Morrissey prefer with his cup of tea?
Mark: I can’t remember. I’m sure he was a Rich Tea man as well. Why wouldn’t he be? You know, I actually wrote a letter to Rich Tea Biscuits once, ‘cos I enjoy them so much that I wrote them a letter, I said ‘Dear Rich Tea Biscuits, I’d like to congratulate you on the continued excellence of your fine biscuits,’ and I described exactly the way I like to dunk them, and they wrote a letter back that said ‘Dear Mr Nevin, thank you for your kind comments, and please find a voucher for 50p.’ So, I got some free ones.
Andrew: I would draw the line at dunking a Chocolate Digestive though.
Mark: Oh no no, you don’t want chocolate ones! No – that’s weird, c’mon.
Andrew: Eddi, why did you choose to do an album of Robert Burns’ work, and not a more contemporary Scottish poet?
Eddi: Well, the thing about Robert Burns… I wasn’t aware of what he’d actually contributed. When I started doing that album I just really wanted to make a Folk album with my Folkie friends back in Scotland, and I kinda wanted to have that same beauty that somebody like Kate Rusby has, so I asked Kate’s man at the time – John McCusker, and John McCusker just had a whole bag of musicians like Ian Carr and Andy Seward, and Ewen Vernal got involved – he was in Deacon Blue so I knew him from the past, and these were all kind-of new people to me, but they were from a scene that I was in when I was seventeen-eighteen, so I was kind-of surprised that there was such vibrancy in it. Then I just started to pick out songs that I remembered, and realised that practically every one was a Burns song. And then the Royal Scottish National Orchestra here were doing a Burns Festival down at Plane Castle in Ayrshire, and they asked me if I knew any Burns songs ‘cos they were doing this Burns festival – and I said ‘well, actually, I’ve got these six that I’ve been working with.’ I’d tuned my guitar to kind-of Bert Jansch and John Martyn tunings and I was trying to find my way through the melodies that I knew – probably getting them wrong, whatever. But my experience of Robert Burns is that he was something that posh people and Bankers celebrated, not the likes of me and my family! Burns Suppers seemed to be the place where quite wealthy Scottish people hung out, and I didn’t remember one Burns Supper when I was growing up or anything like that – nor anybody being that bothered. So I assumed he was some kind of rich dude from the past, and I didn’t really learn about him until I started doing the songs, but then I realised that he was exactly like me. He was the eldest of seven, he was born in 1759 – I was born in 1959. His Dad died at sixty. My Dad died at sixty, there was hard work involved, there was working for the family all the time involved, and I kinda GOT him in a different way, and when I read his poetry and then translated them – because some of it’s archaic, I realised that he was an absolute genius. The way he could describe people, their foibles, their daftness and their ego eccentricities, and I just fell in love with the guy. I was in London and I remember having a dream, and he was on the brow of a bridge in Ayrshire or maybe the borders of England and Scotland, and he was going ‘Come home, just come home. You’ll be alright, come home.’ So I left and took my six or eight songs, did the Culzean Castle and then the Orchestra said ‘look, if you’ve got another six songs we can make an album,’ and they gave me a deal. So I found six more and recorded that album.
Andrew: So you had a vision of Robert Burns, just like Allen Ginsberg had a vision of William Blake.
Eddi: Maybe, I don’t know. But yes – mostly. Cheeky he was. He was really cheeky. He’s a cheeky boy. I don’t know if it’s the same, but I do remember feeling very close to Robert Burns. Not before – but just as I was doing the album, I suddenly started to defend him against other people’s accusations. People were going ‘wasn’t he a bit of a shagger?’ ‘Oh Fuck Off!!!’ It was like, go fucking tell that to Mick Jagger, for fucks sake. Shakespeare. Who the fuck cares whether he was a shagger or not? What matters is that he’s fucking brilliant!
Mark: I’ve never heard that Shakespeare was a bit of a lad? Anyway…
Eddi: He might not have been. I don’t know.
Andrew: Mark, do you really know where Ray Davies lives, as you claim in the song on your 2011 solo album Stand Beside Me In The Sun (Raresong Recordings MARKNCD3).
Mark: I do. He lives very close to me, just round the corner.
Andrew: Muswell Hill, it’s gotta be?
Mark: No. Highgate. He lives just around the corner from me in Highgate.
Eddi: He’s not. He’s lying right here next to me on this double bed. Hey Ray! You can’t see me. I can’t seem to change the picture, I’m really sorry about that.
Mark: A few weeks ago they had the Highgate Village sort-of Square thing here, and I saw my wife was talking to this guy, and I thought ‘who’s that bloke she’s talking to? He seems familiar.’ I walked over. She said ‘Oh, this is Ray Cooper.’ And it was the percussionist who plays with Elton John (Mark plays air-drums to illustrate). And he said ‘do you know who lives there?’ And I said ‘yeah, Ray Davies,’ ‘cos we were standing right next to Ray’s house. He said ‘yeah, I used to go there years ago. He still lives there?’ I thought, this is a really surreal moment. But yes, we see Ray Davies around a lot. And sometimes Dave. I saw Dave Davies in the cheese department of Marks & Spencer the other day.
Andrew: So at least we know what kind of biscuit Dave Davies prefers. He likes Cheese Crackers! To close, is there something else you want to say about the new album that we’ve not already talked about?
Mark: Well, we just really hope people will enjoy Beautiful Happening. We are very proud of it. We… obviously, making an album, the first… we only really made one proper album, so – this was our difficult second album that took us thirty-five difficult years to make. But we think we’ve done it. We are very pleased that… we listen back, we think it sounds like an album from start to finish. It’s cohesive, it’s got lyrics, it’s got melodies, it’s got great musicianship, and it’s got the incredible best singer in the country.
Eddi: Awwwwww
Mark: What’s not to like? So we are utterly delighted, and if other people like it too, that’d be a great club to be in, you know?
.
BY ANDREW DARLINGTON
THE FIRST OF A MILLION KISSES
(1988, RCA PD71696)
All songs written by Mark E Nevin, except ‘Whispers’
(1) A Smile In A Whisper (3:30), with ‘tiny harp’ played by Kim Burton
(2) Perfect (3:37)
(3) Moon On The Rain (3:53) with Steve Forster on mandolin
(4) Find My Love (3:45) with Anthony Thistlethwaite on mandolin
(5) Fairground Attraction (2:17)
(6) The Wind Knows My Name (4:12)
(7) Clare (3:15)
(8) Comedy Waltz (3:30)
(9) The Moon Is Mine (2:41)
(10) Station Street (3:01)
(11) Whispers (3:50), written by Eddie Reader
(12) Allelujah (3:26)
(13) Falling Backwards (2:29)
(14) Mythology (4:38)
‘Perfect’ c/w ‘Falling Backwards’, ‘Mythology’, ‘Mystery Train’ (March 1988, RCA PD41846)
‘Find My Love’ c/w ‘Watching The Party’, ‘You Send Me’, ‘Ay Fond Kiss’ (July 1988, RCA PT42080), no.7 on the UK chart
‘A Smile In A Whisper’ c/w ‘Walking After Midnight’, ‘Winter Rose’, ‘Trying Times’ (October 1988, RCA PT42250)
‘Clare’ c/w ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret?’, ‘The Game Of Love’, ‘Jock O’Hazeldean’ (1989, RCA PT42608)
AY FOND KISS
(June 1990, RCA PL74596)
(1) Jock O’Hazeldean (3:06), traditional song adapted by Walter Scott
(2) The Game Of Lovel (3:25), written by Mark E Nevin
(3) Walking After Midnight (2:49), a Patsy Cline hit written by Alan Block & Don Hecht, Frances Knight plays accordion
(4) You Send Me (4:43), written by Sam Cooke
(5) Trying Times (3:53), written by Donny Hathaway & Leroy Hutson
(6) Mystery Train (1:59), Elvis Presley ‘Sun’ single written by Parker & Phillips
(7) Winter Rose (3:31), written by Mark E Nevin, accordion by Frances Knight, mandolin by Anthony Thistlethwaite
(8) Do You Want To Know A Secret? (2:32), written by Lennon & McCartney
(9) Allelujah (Live) (3:32), written by Mark E Nevin
(10) Cajun Band (3:01), written by Anthony Thistlethwaite
(11) Watching The Party (3:30), written by Mark E Nevin
(12) Ay Fond Kiss (3:19), traditional song adapted by Robbie Burns
‘Walking After Midnight’ c/w ‘Comedy Waltz (Live)’, ‘Clare (Live)’ (1990, RCA PT43654)
‘What’s Wrong With The World?’ (March 2024)
BEAUTIFUL HAPPENING (EP)
(June 2024, Sony Records Int SIJP 1098)
(1) Beautiful Happening
(2) Uncertainty
(3) How Far A Little Candle Throws Its Might
(4) Lullaby For Irish Triplets
BEAUTIFUL HAPPENING
(20 September 2024, Raresong Recordings)
Guest players, Roger Beaujolais (vibraphone), Graham Henderson (accordion)
Nigel Hopkins (piano and string arrangement ‘The Simple Truth’), Melvin Duffy (pedal steel guitar)
Arranged by Simon Clarke and Tim Sanders
Recorded at Master Chord Studio in North London from 27 January 2024
(1) Beautiful Happening 4:43 (Mark E Nevin), written for Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who turned it down!
‘There’s something beautiful in this darkness
Something beautiful is going on
There’s something happening in this silence
Some kind of sweet and wordless song
Some kind of beautiful
Some kind of beautiful
Some kind of beautiful happening…’
(2) Sing Anyway 4:02, previously featured on Mark’s solo album My Unfashionable Opinion, now recorded with pedal-steel player Melvin Duffy
(3) What’s Wrong With The World? (Mark E Nevin), first single ‘You can change the mirror, but not the reflection’
(4) A Hundred Years Of Heartache 3:58, first song to be recorded
‘Every time the clock strikes midnight, I can count another day
Every time I see the sunlight, I know I’m one less night away
One less night of counting midnights, all alone in my lonely bed
I’m coming home, the end is in sight, I’m coming home
I’m gonna rest my head, rest my head
And a hundred years of heartache are over now
A hundred years of heartache, I made it somehow…’
(5) Learning To Swim 3:10, ukelele strum, about overcoming hesitations and being certain of your own decisions. ‘When it’s cold, you gotta be bold.’
(6) Gatecrashing Heaven 3:38 All access denied to a sinner like me
(7) Sun And Moon 3:25, features the Kick Horns Brass, Simon Clarke (baritone sax), Tim Sanders (tenor sax), David Liddell (trombone), Ryan Quigley (trumpet & flugel horn)
(8) The Simple Truth 3:10, something different for Fairground Attraction and is the first of two songs on the album co-written by Nevin and other songwriters – in this case Nashville veteran Kimmie Rhodes and Mystery Jets vocalist Blaine Harrison. Graham Henderson exchanges his accordion for a glorious performance on the chromatic harmonica and string arranger Nigel Hopkins brings a touch of class to the proceedings with his understated score.
(9) Hey Little Brother 3:52 written for former tour manager Vance Anderson who died prior to the recording
(10) Last Night (Was A Sweet One) 3:51, again augmented by the Kick Horns, sweetly romantic ‘under a spell, and over the moon’
(11) Miracles 3:14
(12) Lullaby For Irish Triplets 4:28, a waltzy lullaby written by Nevin, Grace Pettis and Robbie Cavanaugh
Eddi says ‘I thank whatever brought me here, in gratitude to the universe and all who sails in her.’ Simon would like to thank Gin, Grace, Jimmy and Ash for their love and support. Roy says ‘I’d like to thank my beautiful family for all their love, support and encouragement.’ Mark says, to Louise, Gabriel, Stanley and Rufus ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you – every single thing about you shows me how to love you.’ In loving memory of our big brother, Vance Anderson
Also on Saturday from 7-8.30 is a small event where I’ll be interviewing Ralph Billington, a local 88 year-old self-described revolutionary socialist, and artist, and showing an exhibition of his artwork. The exhibition of his work should also be up on Friday.
Here you can see the first part of me settling into the new space. It has tons of daylight which is going to be a new experience for me, having been hermited away in the back of a windowless museum for the last five years.
Thanks to everyone who has 
