Still Falling and Laughing

Image of Edwyn Collins © Fenella Lorimar

Songs often remind us of specific events in our lives, hearing those songs can spark memories - both good and bad - of those events. Conversely, returning to the places where those events took place can remind us of the music.

I walk over Edinburgh’s Bruntsfield Links 4 or 5 times every week and have done for the last 6 years since moving to this house. And while I wouldn’t swear to thinking of this every time I do, on many occasions I think of Flesh of My Flesh by Glasgow band Orange Juice. I don’t link the song to any particular event, but the single was released in the summer of 1983 and I suspect that I bought it, probably from the Other Record Shop in the High Street, feeling flush after signing on one afternoon. (This was the halcyon days of being able to claim unemployment benefit as a student during the summer holidays.) Then, as now, I loved it and for whatever reason I have a memory of singing it to myself as I strolled across the Links basking in the sunshine. Portable listening devices may have existed in the early 1980s, but I didn’t own one.

Not much of story, I know, but Flesh of My Flesh is one of the few songs the lyrics of which I can remember: “Here's a penny for your thoughts / Incidentally, you may keep the change / And here's a book of etiquette / I bought to keep you sane”. More than that, without needing to listen to the actual recording, I can hear Edwyn Collins’ acid-tongued voice, the jangly guitars, the flugelhorn, the crazed solo as the track fades, and, are those actual church bells? It wasn’t Orange Juice’s biggest hit but out of everything they recorded in their short career, it’s the one that’s stuck with me.

Despite suffering two cerebral haemorrhages in 2005 which for six months left him barely able to speak, Collins is still recording, and, in contrast to his slowed speech, his singing voice as strong as ever. Lead single Knowledge from his forthcoming 10th solo album Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation might be a little less frenetic than the Orange Juice Edwyn of old but the trademarks are there, the jangly guitar, the Stax-like horn section and - of course - that beautiful baritone voice.

Towards the end of the accompanying video there are flashbacks to a younger Collins, but more touching are the earlier scenes filmed this winter near his Clashnarrow Studio in Helmsdale, North East Scotland. There we see him clearly enjoying the time he has been given and, with determination and courage, has made the most of. As he said in Flesh of My Flesh “The difference between you and me / Is that the world owes you a living”. 🧡