This is the first “I Fucking Love…” post. This will be a regular feature on this here blog of mine where I will wax lyrical about a band/film/TV show/thing I love. Seeing as I named the blog after a Blue Nile song it only seams fitting that they should be first to receive my Fucking Love.

The Blue Nile was formed by three Glasgow natives who met at Glasgow University in the late 1970s singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Buchanan, bassist Robert Bell, and keyboardist Paul Joseph Moore.  The Blue Nile is the title of Alan Moorehead’s 1962 sequel to The White Nile, the two books making up a history of the Nile River. They have only released four studio albums and a hand-full of singles in the last 25 years but in this time a amassed a small but dedicated following.

I was first introduced to The Blue Nile by my flat-mate Jay who used to play their songs (Mainly Tomorrow Morning and Love Came Down from the Peace At Last album) at open mic nights and party’s when we were at college. Jay’s Mum was a big fan of the band and he had borrowed her Blue Nile cassettes in that semi-permanent way that all kids borrow their folks best records. Jay spread the word of The Blue Nile among our friends and soon their music kept appearing at most party’s we were at, usually at the end of the night when everyone was chilling out and thinking about going to bed.

The first Blue Nile album I bought and listened to properly (at home and sober) was their third Peace at Last and to be perfectly honest with you on first listen I wasn’t impressed by the other tacks on the album I hadn’t heard Jay play. The synths were cheesy and the production sounded a bit dated, the album was released in 1996 and this was 2002. Then track 7 Family Life took my breath away, I’d never heard such a beautifully sad song. The track is about a man looking back at how his parents separation had affected him as a child and drawing parallels with his current situation in the midst of a divorce. I cried when I first heard Family Life and in fact I cry EVERY TIME I hear it. After that I loved Peace At Last, even its weaker tracks (God Bless You Kid, Holy Love), it is on the whole a joyous album and one I appreciate more as I mature.

I wanted more Blue Nile, if I loved Peace at Last then nothing was about to prepare me for the sonic heroin that is Hats. Without a doubt it is their best album from start to finish. The texture of each track and the imagery of every lyric is perfectly placed and timed allowing the album to flow nicely. The themes of longing (Lets go out tonight), isolation (From a late night Train) and the romance in everyday life (Saturday Night) really spoke to me while I was going though my “young and restless years”. This album was played to with in an inch of its life by me, any late night bus/train journey, going to sleep, cooking my tea, any fucking excuse. I now own Hats on CD, Vinyl and Cassette (see my previous post for an emerging pattern) it will always feature in my top 5 albums of all time list. I could go on about their sparse and stunning début A Walk Across the Rooftops or their most recent (2004) release High but its late and I think I’ve written enough about The Blue Nile for now.

I have made it my mission in life to introduce people to this wonderful band. The Blue Nile have carved a special place in my heart and judging by the communal gasp when The Blue Nile played Family Life at their Glasgow Royal Concert Hall reunion show in 2008 I’m not the only one.

If you want to have a listen to what I’ve been ranting about I have made a Blue Nile play-list on Spotify