‘Back To Your Roots’: Edwyn Collins – Quickfire Interview & Album Review

Orange Juice frontman, co-founder of Postcard Records, Ivor Novello winner for his solo hit A Girl Like You… Edwyn Collins has a packed CV.

We quizzed him about the early days in Glasgow, where a stylish, high-energy post-punk scene was fast evolving.

Q) Where was your first gig?

Edwyn: “Somewhere in Bearsden. The Nu-Sonics [later Orange Juice] played with The Backstabbers and The Shock. 1977.”

Q) What was the weirdest gig you played?

Edwyn: “A place in Maryhill where they were banging their pool cues on the stage and shouting for a Showaddywaddy song, calling us ‘poofs’.”

Q) What was the smallest crowd you played to?

Edwyn: “There have been many. Maybe six paying customers in Washington DC. The bar staff, door staff and support band swelled the numbers. It was a good gig, actually.”

Q) When did you first realise you had hit on something special with Orange Juice?

Edwyn: “It doesn’t happen like that. You’re so busy and neurotic coping with all the things that go wrong and then something good happens. It’s up and down.”

Q) What was the best thing about those early days with the band?

Edwyn: “Coming up with a new song.”

Q) Did you have any crisis points early on, when you nearly jacked it all in?

Edwyn: “No, I never feel like packing it in, ever.”

Q) If you had your time again, what would you do differently?

Edwyn: “I live without regret.”

Q) Could you offer one piece of advice to aspiring young artists?

Edwyn: “I wouldn’t bother. They won’t be listening.”

ALBUM: Edwyn Collins – Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation

The American writer Charles Bukowksi used to say that an intellectual conveys a simple thing in a hard way, but an artist can convey a hard thing in a simple way.

When Edwyn suffered two cerebral haemorrhages in 2005, it left him with aphasia, a language disorder that impairs speech and memory. The prospect of navigating everyday life was surely overwhelming enough but the thought of making music ever again, communicating his ideas in a creative and meaningful way, must have seemed nigh on impossible.

As he recounted in an interview some years later: “I was in hospital for six months and for all that time I couldn’t speak. I was just inside my mind. I was so scared. I couldn’t express what I was feeling.”

The title track on his latest album, Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation, addresses the matter head on.

‘If I can’t talk to you
And you can’t talk to me
How can nation speak unto nation?’

It is a deeply personal song, about Edwin’s struggles with aphasia. Equally, and tellingly, it could work on a geo-political level too, an encapsulation of our times.

‘If I could break down the empire that rules your home
And bathe it with thoughts that are all my own’

Despite his significant challenges, Edwyn, the artist, has always found a way to cut through, to convey a hard thing in a simple way. His unique, direct-yet-poetic approach to language shines in every line. He feeds on clear, powerful statements. There’s no room for opaque imagery.

The album’s opening track Knowledge, a galloping surge of indie-pop, does plenty more of the same, capturing the passage of life – but with bravado as well as brooding.

‘The more I know of this old world
I don’t feel safe
I don’t have faith’

Like the best of lyricists, his words and delivery are always powerful and pointed, leaving little room for misinterpretation, and yet they never lack eloquence, subtlety or charm. Sometimes, Edwyn’s songs can at first seem grave, earnest and demanding of your utmost reverence, only to grow into something quirky, wry or adroit.

Across the 11 tracks that comprise Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation, Edwyn navigates us through certain emotional terrains. The Mountains Are My Home is a yearning country lament. Paper Planes has an unabashed almost-childlike fairytale innocence to it. The Bridge Hotel is a Celtic homecoming. Strange Old World is perhaps the closest he comes to his signature Girl Like You baritone, with its brassy, bass-soaked blues vibes.

Musically, the record covers familiar territory but is presented in a way that is very considered and notably articulate. The classic jangly alt-pop that has persisted since those Orange Juice days is still there in abundance, and remains the essence, but comes with a high sheen and a collection of adornments – piano, horns and all. These are three-minute pop cuts, licked with orchestration and served with poise.

There are many touches and techniques in the album’s production but they are used sparingly and knit together pretty seamlessly. When Edwyn started making music in the 70s, he fused a range of genres and influences around at the time – punk, new wave, indie, even funk and disco. But whatever ideas were folded in, the execution had to be bang on. It had to be just-so. And he remains a standard-bearer to this day.

His voice remains the most potent and alluring characteristic of the entire record. Still full of raw gravitas and luxurious depth, it just connects. To borrow from Bukowski once more: “Style is the answer to everything.”

– – – –