Date of Release: August 31st 1984
Re-issue: February 23rd 2024
Beggars Banquet/Beggars Arkive
Well, who’d have thought it’s 40 years ago since a very uncool, lanky, be-spectacled teenage me made my way to Clydebank in Glasgow to procure the original copy of this beauty of an album. The Cult’s first proper one. Let me reminisce….
With sweaty hands, I clutch this sonic sensation in a John Menzies bag on the number 3 bus back home, via Drumchapel, on a sunny Saturday morning. I can only afford to buy an album about twice a year, so this is a huge commitment. Normally, I get by from taping things on cassette from Top of the Pops, the radio or from mates of mates. I wonder if it’ll be any good, but having heard Spiritwalker on the Tube, I’m quietly confident. I think about jangly guitars and rolling drumbeats, and how many bacon rolls mum will make for lunch.
The Cult performing Spiritwalker1 & one of my mum’s bacon rolls2,
both from 1984…and still fresh
Suddenly, I’m transported from the gardens of Babylon and gastronomic dreams with an almighty, ear-shuddering bang! A brick smashes through the window in front of me, covering me in glass. Luckily my head and shoulders are ok, and more importantly my precious shopping appears intact.
I wonder if the yobs outside were aiming for me. The driver stops briefly to shout ‘away ye wee basturts ye’. He makes a call on his walkie talkie thingy and shouts ‘everyone all right?’ He points to me. ‘Ho specs- are ye all right?’. I nod and can’t speak. I’m getting used to being stoned…in a more mind-altering way than ganga. It’s a regular occurrence going to Rangers games.
I think to myself deffo 3 bacon rolls, and a can of bru is very much needed to steady my nerves.
Ahhhh, them were the days. Balmy days in Glasgow.
Summer in Glasgow3 and an air conditioned bus4
Today, I have my hands on the 40-year re-release on ox-blood vinyl. And mighty fine it looks too. Early heads up: if you’re into Electric, Sonic Temple and other more commercial stuff, you might not like this as much, but for the purists, it’s a cracker.
Top: Dreamtime picture disc; bottom: original black vinyl and 40-year red re-release5
Side 1 kicks off with Horse Nation – please do make the mistake of turning the sound up to 11, as it grows from gently howling wind to something overpoweringly massive and noisy. The boys nod to the North American indigenous population throughout the album, and Horse Nation conjures up some great imagery…‘See them prancing, proudly they came…a horse nation’. Fantastic. The more crowd-pleasing commercial hit, Spiritwalker, follows, propelling The Cult firmly forwards in the charts, prior to their mega-career-making-best-song-ever, She Sells Sanctuary, a year later.
83rd Dream takes us into swirling sonics and ‘four crows nailed to a wooden post in a barren field’. Grim imagery or what. Symbolic of the industrial depression wrought throughout Thatcher’s Britain.
Fact: The V&A museum listed Mrs T as a ‘contemporary villain’,
alongside Hitler & Bin Laden6
Butterflies presents the ultimate in teenage paranoia, ‘…don’t you know my selfishness was my soooooicide…….they walk behind me oh looooord’.
What a welcome relief from Agadoo and all that 80s vacuous trash, represented by the likes of Wham and Cliff Richard. This is proper miserable, two fingers up yours, angry stuff. So deep no older sister or parents would understand. Perfect fodder for the thinking rebellious teenager, beginning to realise life in general isn’t what it was made out to be in primary school.
Back then, I wonder whether I should ‘Go West’ (another mighty single hit) to ‘…break bread in the new land’, concluding side 1. Mind you, I’m in no rush to go in that direction back to Clydebank, even if they do have a good chippy. Teenage me thinks maybe I should grow my hair long, as ‘Dreamtime’ later implores. Quite like the sound of that, but I chicken out to avoid the disapproval. Hmmm. I do try, but fail, to do a Billy Duffy; medium length and angry cool.
Billy Duffy (LHS)7 & my attempt at copying his hairstyle (RHS)8
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‘Gimmick’ and ‘Flower In The Desert’ are all nice n good. Rolling wagons, ‘rhythms of my hometown’ – resonates with smashing glass on the bus from Clydebank- ‘…don’t wanna be like you, we’re burning up in here oh no oh nooooo oh no, as Babylon crumbles to sand’… with some nice backing vocals.
The penultimate ‘Rider In The Snow’ evokes a recall of ‘The Blizzard’, by Jim Reeves (one of the best songs ever). Is the poor man (and his horse) going to make it in the arctic conditions? Who cares. This is all quality stuff and adolescent me couldn’t wait to go to school to ask if anyone’s heard ‘Dreamtime’ by The Cult…they’ll be like, ‘who? what?’ What was weird music back then is the music for me…dark and moody with introspective lyrics…howling vocals from the mighty Ian Astbury, combining with guitar supremo Sir Billy Duffy, pushed along by the throbbing base of Jamie Stewart, and very sadly, soon to expire Nigel Preston, with his impeccable heavy rolling drums, all sprinkled with the odd bit of jangly pop! What’s not to like.
And finally, ‘Bad Medicine Waltz’…a warning to all considering a life of hard drugs. ‘Smile, it may take a while, but it’s better than being nailed to the floor’. And my fave lyric ‘…spit in their face if they stare when you’re down’ – dedicated to the brick throwers of Clydebank.
Great album, great band, great re-release. Still relevant and cracking 40 years on. Get yer paws on it now and give yer ears a treat. Best enjoyed with multiple bacon rolls and Irn Bru.
Rated a massive 0/10 on the Gashometer!
Sources
- The Cult-Spiritwalker – Live on The Tube 1984, rock junior https://youtu.be/uod2gdVKP6c?si=XinnRNo02QD-4IpJ
- Bacon roll – Spar Cannich https://cannichstores.co.uk/shop/bacon-roll
- Summer in Glasgow – Daily Record, 23rd August 2015 https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/summer-back-scotland-basks-sunshine-6307468
- Smashed bus window – South Wales Argus, 9th December 2015 https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/14134178.newport-bus-removes-night-service-after-half-bricks-smash-bus-windows-in-ringland-and-alway/
- Dreamtime album – Ally Grant, February 2024
- Mrs T & chums – The Times, 18th March 2024 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/va-museum-margaret-thatcher-villain-hitler-exhibition-n6tx7256r
- Billy Duffy – X/twitter post 1st February 2024 https://twitter.com/TheBillyDuffy/status/1753025188931727855
- Hat hair – pinterest, Mary Evans https://pin.it/1QhvTdX9I