Deacon Blue
Raintown

THE REVIEW

A particular urgency unites some of the most moving pages in the history of music: many of them are the natural offspring of an anxiety for liberation which the artist willingly translates—with more or less heavy use of metaphor—into a dream of escape. Escape from oneself, from the other, from the unsustainability of a feeling; escape from all that—hostile to any form of control—turns into immediate, pressing discomfort. The ticking of the rain on the windows of buildings in Glasgow is not a sweet sound; it is the obsessive rhythm that marks the monotonous symphony of an urban devastation from which it is difficult to escape. Alienation, misery, frustration are the key words of an ordinary madness steeped in smog and rain, a dirty child of a leaden sky that does not open to the slightest gap. Painting such a scenario in terms of a real "storm" is lucid, painful coherence.

Such awareness, that of being "born in a storm," Ricky Ross was certainly not the first to achieve it; he may be, however, the first to have shouted it to the world with a distinct and angry cry, the desperate outburst of one who knows that the dream of a promised land where love reigns—"the very thing"—must be somewhere, it cannot remain the goal of a merely inner journey. "Raintown" (1987) then presents itself as a two-sided medal: on one side, the painful, lucid, disenchanted fresco of a generation of urban antiheroes, new misfits willed by Lady Thatcher ("She offered me belongings / She thought I was the ragman", "Ragman"), forced to curse their roots (the title-track, "Town To Be Blamed"), unable to recognize love ("He calls her the chocolate girl / 'Cause he thinks she melts when he touches her", "Chocolate Girl") or even frightened by it ("Love's Great Fears"); on the other side—unchanged the protagonists—the narrative (not very epic) of the exploits of small heroes who oppose the nightmare of everyday life with a longing for redemption, to be found under the words "love" and, above all, "dignity."

The grandchildren of the famous steelydanian plural merge the two sides of the medal in what is one of the most beautiful, significant, and heartfelt debut albums of the '80s, which unfortunately will not be granted a worthy follow-up (already the subsequent "When The World Knows Your Name", 1989, though valid, will rank several notches below the first attempt). The keyboards take center stage in this mélange that combines energetic pop (noteworthy the rhythm section in "Ragman" and "The Very Thing") with engaging soul ballads ("When Will You"), scraps of country sweetness (the delightful 'slide' of "Chocolate Girl") with fresh and immediate melodies ("He Looks Like Spencer Tracy Now", the stunning "Love's Great Fears"), to give the final touch with small masterpieces of song form (the perfection of "Loaded", the impactful intro, and emotional charge in "Dignity"). Rarely have such suffering words been counterpointed by such consoling notes; it is this intimate strength, the greatness of "Raintown". A jewel of melodic-lyrical balance to indulge in and give as a gift, an indisputable testament to an emotional-expressive power that—wherever Ricky Ross is now—will not stop breaking into the hearts of new devotees.