# This is the story of our first teacher
# Shetland made her jumpers and the devil made her features... #
The Proclaimers are...
Authentic, powerful, brilliant.
# It's over and done with... #
Creative.
Happy, exciting.
And loud.
Strident, fearless.
Full-tilt soulful rock and roll.
Total soul music.
And Scottish.
# I've been so sad
# Since you said my accent was bad
# He's worn a frown
# This Caledonia clown... #
30 years ago, the world of pop music
was turned upside down and inside out
with the release of The Proclaimers' debut album,
This Is The Story.
# If I flattened all the vowels And threw the R away... #
For identical twin brothers from Auchtermuchty,
it was an unlikely success,
and propelled Craig and Charlie Reid to stardom.
The Proclaimers!
CHEERING
Here come the greatest band in the world, The Proclaimers!
CHEERING
# I would walk 500 miles... #
Since then, The Proclaimers have gone from strength to strength,
touring, writing, touring,
releasing album after album,
becoming cartoons, touring,
having their songs adapted into a musical and film,
and, of course, touring.
# I wanna spend my life with you... #
I'm a huge fan. I've bought every album
and seen them live countless times over the years.
I even had Life With You played at my wedding
as I walked down the aisle.
They never fail to make my heart fly -
and so I was delighted to meet up with them
to look back at their story so far.
Craig and Charlie, hello. Hello. Hello.
What was the first Proclaimers song, do you remember? Maybe Misty Blue?
Misty Blue, that was one of the first ones,
Misty Blue was one of the first ones.
That's funny, I can't even remember.
Might have been Over And Done With, it could have been. Yeah.
That was one of my Desert Island Discs.
And so you just sort of,
you got, you got a kind of cache of songs together
and took them to local pubs, or what?
Yeah, we tried, we tried pubs, we tried getting gigs,
we didn't, we got very few gigs, very few.
We got a gig in Nicky Tams, a pub in Edinburgh.
Did that show, did that gig for a few weeks,
a few months or something -
and then we met Kenny MacDonald, who's still our manager,
and he became our manager,
and then it started,
everything that was not being sorted out started to be sorted out.
You were seeing it as a career, it wasn't just something...
It was something, not...
I've never really seen it as a career. Oh, right, even now?
No, no. It's something...it is something that claims you,
and you don't, you don't know how you're going to get there,
you don't know what it's going to sound like -
but you know that's what you want to do, that's the first thing,
that's the number one thing,
is play music and everything else has just got to fit in with that.
And where does Kevin Rowland come into it all?
We'd seen Dexys on the very first UK tour that they'd done,
at the very start of 1980.
# Back in '68 in a sweaty club
# Oh, Geno... #
I remember seeing them down the front of the stage
at the very first gig, which I think was Edinburgh,
and...
Because you can't miss them, you know,
two guys who look very similar with glasses.
And... Great look.
And of course, the following night, and I thought,
"Oh, those two guys are down the front again."
# I'll only ask you once more... #
They came on stage,
it was something we weren't expecting,
it was like being hit by a truck. Right.
It was kind of breathtaking how good they were.
How... How unusual they were.
We went backstage after, said hello to people, and met Kevin Rowland,
and we just went to Dexys shows after there, kept in touch.
# This man is looking for someone to hold him down... #
We became friends, and they would come down,
and we'd have these long discussions into the night, you know.
And they were very political.
They were very vocal in what they thought -
and you couldn't win an argument with them,
because there was two of them.
But incredible passion, and... and, you know, they inspired me.
To me, they were like a conscience, to me, you know?
They were like... because they were so honest,
and they were so genuine, and they were so not willing to compromise.
He kind of helped us out down the years,
putting us in contact with people.
Giving us demo time.
Yeah, they came down to Birmingham
for a couple of days and we recorded some demos.
I think I booked a couple of days in the studio,
because I'm just used to that, demos taking a bit of time,
and I think I sort of dropped them off at the studio,
went in, introduced them to the bloke and I went off somewhere.
Came back about an hour later, and they were like, "We're done."
Like, oh, OK! I listened to them and they were great, you know?
So he helped you get a demo together,
and it was that demo that made it to Paul Heaton?
Yes, it was, yes. Yes, it was.
"LETTER FROM AMERICA" PLAYS ON TAPE
# When you go, will you send back
# A letter from America
# Take a look up the rail track
# From Miami to Canada... #
This is the same tape recorder we had in the van,
which was our stereo system in those days.
We used to get a lot of demos sent to our, sort of, postbox address,
and we'd let them build up,
and then when we went away, The Housemartins,
we'd take all the cassettes with us and play them in the van.
So, yeah, sometime in early '86, late '85, their demo got played,
in a...you know, like a battle of the bands inside the van.
It took me by surprise straight away,
because half the stuff you heard, it was the '80s, you know,
it was right bang in the middle of the '80s -
and it just struck me as being very different.
I couldn't work out where... where their roots were.
Which was great, you know, because most bands you could say,
oh, they're trying to sound like The Smiths
or trying to sound like Spandau Ballet, or whatever -
but with them, you couldn't.
So that's, straightaway, that stuck them out.
I suggested, you know, like,
this band are too good just to, sort of, be in the van.
They're better than this.
You tell the story. Yeah, somebody got in contact with us
and said that The Housemartins had mentioned us
on the Janice Long show,
the review thing that she did on a Friday evening, and it was like...
"What?" You know, kind of the strangest thing in the world.
For some reason, we were able to get in contact with them
and we went down to Hull and spent a Friday night with them
in the hostelries, some of the hostelries,
I think it was pretty much all the hostelries of Hull.
Had a drink with them,
I think that was to find out if we would be suitable.
To go on the road with? Aye, right.
So, they supported us in '86, travelled all over with us.
# It could be tomorrow it could be today
# The sky takes the soul the earth takes the clay... #
First gig was in the Hummingbird at...Birmingham. Yeah.
And probably the most scared we've ever been in our lives.
We'd never played to anything more than probably 50 people -
and you were on stage, and that was a big venue, in Birmingham,
it was a couple of thousand people.
And nobody in that audience knew who you were? No. Clueless.
We thought we'd get bottled off every night. Yeah. Right.
And we didn't, you know?
Yeah, it was a strange experience overall.
# If it's tomorrow oh, if it's today... #
You've never seen anything like it, because you don't,
you don't know, you see it on telly and you go to gigs yourself,
and then to actually be up there
in front of hundreds or maybe 1,000 or 2,000 people, it's...
I'm kind of glad we did it when we were young.
I wouldn't fancy breaking through when you're 55. Yeah.
What, because you're fearless about it? You don't... You're fearless.
# I've never been here... #
Yeah, they were brilliant, absolutely brilliant live.
And the next step was to get them to make records
that would convince the public.
So we put them in touch with John Williams.
# What a good place to be don't believe it
# Cos they speak a different language
# And it's never really happened to me... #
I was producing The Housemartins.
They told me about this band called The Proclaimers,
and showed me this cassette.
Which I've brought with me, which is the famous red cassette.
And I listened to it and I thought, "Wow, these guys are amazing."
# Yeah, it's over and done with it's over and done with... #
They'd obviously been brought up on the Beatles and country music,
but there were shades of rock and roll
and lyrically, they were sublime -
and I just thought, these kind of artists don't come around
every single day of the week, I must get involved with this.
I flew them down to London -
and this was the first time they'd ever been on an aeroplane, in fact -
and they came down to London
and performed before the Chrysalis staff in the Chrysalis boardroom.
I think they stood on the old wooden desk in the office
and played in front of people -
and to hear that music, live, that close up,
it blows you away, do you know what I mean?
It was just like they were spitting their accents in your face,
do you know what I mean? Like, "Yeah!" Like that.
So it was no surprise to hear John,
John phoned us up and said they loved them,
they want to release the record.
But the crucial factor in sealing the deal
was Craig and Charlie's first ever TV appearance.
The biggest thing was The Tube.
This was a big music show, it was a million people every Friday night.
I thought, "We have to let them see them visually,"
so we shot, for 50 quid,
we shot a little video of Craig and Charlie
standing down the Royal Mile singing Throw The 'R' Away.
# I'm just gonna have to learn to hesitate
# To make sure my words on your Saxon ears don't grate... #
That swung it around, because all of a sudden after that,
they had a meeting, I got a phone call, "You're on."
Didn't Paula Yates introduce you, with something like,
"Here's something a bit weird"? She said, she was in the foreground,
said something like, "And now here's something really weird."
Yeah. And she wasn't wrong.
Did you feel like you were something weird?
Oh, God, aye. I think we were always going to be fish out of water
in everything we did.
And now for something totally weird and unusual.
Identical twins singing.
Craig and Charles Reid, alias The Proclaimers, come from Auchtermuchty
in Scotland, and supported The Housemartins on their last tour.
They're proud of being one of the few Scottish bands
who don't sing with American accents -
and here they are in their TV debut,
another one, with Throw The 'R' Away.
CHEERING
Well, I remember seeing The Proclaimers on The Tube,
and they didn't look or sound like anyone else.
# I've been so sad
# Since you said my accent was bad... #
Yes, their appearance on The Tube
was baffling, I think, to most of the audience.
Two kind of geeky guys looking like folk musicians appear,
and then suddenly launch into it like The Clash.
You're like, "Who the hell are these guys?"
It was unlike anything anyone had seen.
Even if you were a proper dyed in the beard folky in Scotland,
you wouldn't really have seen anything like The Proclaimers.
# Some days I stand
# On your green and pleasant land... #
That was a massive show at the time. It was huge. It was massive.
We went to the football the next day,
and we were standing in the east terrace in Easter Road
and people were coming up,
as we were buying a pie and a coffee, people coming at us,
"Saw you last night, brilliant, yeah, fantastic."
So you knew how many people watched the show, and the impact it had.
# You say that if I wanna get ahead
# The language I use should be left for dead... #
It was an astonishing thing when The Proclaimers appeared,
because they appeared out of nowhere, seemingly.
It was radical, you know, in a way that was genuinely radical,
in that it was a break from what everybody was listening to.
On the whole, the '80s was just a decade
when music was kicked to death
by the misuse of appalling cheap digital technology -
and, obviously, The Proclaimers made their records
at the height of that, the first record.
It was at a time of highly cultivated images.
If you want to contrast The Proclaimers,
the obvious one would be to contrast with Bros...
..where you've got these highly photogenic twins
who've been kind of polished to the nth degree by their record company.
One of the things that came out of the 1980s
was the ability to package subversive and rebellious,
so that something can appear to be, without really rocking the boat.
The fact that they pitched up looking and sounding like they did
was one of the most genuinely rebellious
and subversive acts of music in the 1980s.
The way they looked was different -
and I don't mean just the fact
that they were twins and they wore glasses -
but they didn't dress like kids in a band.
What you've got to understand is,
whilst all these people were in the charts,
you know, like Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran,
anybody who dressed like a straight was seen as a bit like the enemy.
# Will you send back... #
They look middle-of-the-road, like Roger Whittaker or something -
but actually, you know, they were real rebels,
because everyone else was doing electronic music
and The Proclaimers were just...
HE HUMS
You know, and that's rebellion.
In a sweater.
A chunky one, an Arran sweater.
People tend to think of them as big folky, sort of, couthy thing,
but they're not, they were more punk than punks.
They were punks in the mid-'70s in Fife,
you know, they were proper punks.
I'm pretty sure they saw the early tours of Scotland
by The Clash and the Sex Pistols.
# White riot, I wanna riot
# White riot, a riot of my own... #
We'd read the Tony Parsons interview with the Clash in '77 in the NME.
I'd read the interview before I saw the band. Right.
There was no doubt after reading the interview
that this was the way to do it.
# And everybody's doin'
# Just what they're told to do
# Nobody wants
# To go to jail... #
And did you feel very swept up in that revolution?
Yeah. It felt like it was ours. You know?
It wasn't looking back at people who were 40, making music.
He says, at 55!
And even though you were up in Scotland
it didn't feel remote, that kind of... No, it didn't.
I think if you were interested in it
and you felt it was part of you,
I don't think it mattered where you were. Right.
And then you formed a punk band, I believe?
Yeah, we formed a couple of bands -
the first one was called The Hippy Hasslers...
Lovely name. It was a good one.
And the second was called Black Flag
before we even knew there was an American one.
# White riot - I want to riot
# White riot - a riot of my own. #
One of many iconic champions of Craig and Charlie early on
was Bill Drummond, later better known as half of The KLF.
Musically and culturally,
he felt a kindred spirit with The Proclaimers.
As a maverick, you don't get any more maverick
than the guy who burnt a million quid,
and took a bunch of fake monks to the Isle of Jura,
and, you know, dropped a dead sheep at the Brit Awards.
It was 1986. I was 33 and a third years old.
Things were going nowhere. Time for a revolution in MY life.
I decided to write, record and release my own album - The Man.
I sung the songs in my own accent,
and my long-time colleague David Balfe said,
"Just don't embarrass yourself, Bill -
"nobody outside of Scotland
"wants to hear songs sung in a Scottish accent."
But I didn't care.
Then the next day, David Balfe phones me up
and he said he'd seen these two brothers on The Tube
singing in their own accent, a Scottish accent -
and they were brilliant.
He said we should sign them to our music publishing company,
Zoo Music -
but in those days there was no YouTube or catch up
to check them out, I just had to take his word
that they were brilliant,
even though they sang in their own accent, a Scottish accent.
So we ended up signing them to our music publishing company, Zoo Music.
And these two brothers WERE brilliant,
and they still ARE brilliant.
You know, if someone like Bill Drummond,
who doesn't do anything the easy or obvious way -
I don't believe he's actually sat down for an interview
in this traditional sense for this programme...
If someone like Bill is on side, you know you're doing something right.
# Promised you a miracle... #
At the time, all the Scottish bands - I mean, Simple Minds,
Big Country, Hipsway -
nobody was singing in their own accents. BOTH: No.
It was all this kind of transatlantic kind of sound...
Yeah. ..and that was just accepted as the norm, wasn't it?
We'd gone to London two or three times and met a couple of people,
and they'd always been, "Well, we like the songs but the accent..."
Oh, really? So you met quite a lot of resistance?
It was there, you know?
I couldn't see the point of writing the songs
about stuff that we knew and had observed,
and then singing it in a mid-Atlantic accent,
I couldn't see the point of that.
And Throw The 'R' Away, that was the first single, right?
Yes, it was. It was, yeah. It was.
It didn't get very much play.
Did in my house.
# ..This Caledonian clown
# I'm just going to have to learn to hesitate
# To make sure my words on your Saxon ears don't grate... #
That was what was striking -
someone said, "They're singing in their own accent,"
and you're suddenly going, "Right enough, so they are."
Because you hadn't even thought about
the idea of a band singing in their own accent,
especially not a Scottish accent.
# He's been so sad
# Cos you said his accent was bad... #
We tend to keep our vowels very short - we say "shirt" and "skirt"
whereas the English would say "shi-irt" and "ski-irt."
It's definitely an easier way of singing,
with those really big open vowel sounds -
and it's quite a decision to sing in a Scottish accent.
# ..if I flattened all my vowels and threw the R away... #
MURIEL GRAY: I get the impression with them
they probably didn't even think twice about it.
The Proclaimers' Scottish dialect singing was more to do with punk,
than it was anything to do with anything political...
Not even just punk, actually - Alex Harvey was the first person
really to start singing in a really broad Scottish accent.
# I followed a naked body
# And a naked body followed me... #
And HE was acting on the back of
new wave and punk English artists
who'd started to sing...
admittedly slightly like Bert in Mary Poppins,
you know, like the Sex Pistols...
but nevertheless that was a really new thing, where you could
actually sing in your own dialect.
To me it's kind of...
I suppose as an artist, really, for want of a better word
it's all about integrity.
It's all about getting to the truth.
That's what it's about, and everything else comes from that.
And that's what they were saying in that statement.
But it was a determination to do it our own way,
and...not sod the consequences, but accept the consequences.
That's quite ballsy if you're skint,
and these people are kind of going,
"If you could just change that one thing"...
I suppose it is.
I suppose it is, but... you know, we were younger,
and we were determined,
and we fed off each other's energy about it
and our determination to do it the way that we would do it.
# Please don't go
# Rushing by
# Stay and make my heart fly... #
So tell us about recording that first album. You came to London...
We did, John Williams brought us down.
So we hadn't really spent any time in the studio before.
We spent a couple of days trying out new guitars,
cos the thing I had
was like something that had fallen off the back of a lorry...
Right. So we tried a few new guitars,
then 12-string and stuff like that.
So a couple of days messing about with that,
and then got into recording the songs.
Pretty much just set up,
got the microphones right
and just played them until we got a version we liked.
# ..Cos I never seem to know the time
# When you're with me... #
We kept it very intimate.
And Charlie and Craig recorded most of their takes in the control room -
and I felt that I could make them sound huge
without too many overdubs.
# ..Stay and make my heart fly
# I can't do any more... #
It was quite a tricky job for John producing it,
to sort of bridge that gap between something that sounded fantastic
as a demo but something that had to be played on radio. You know.
That's what they wanted, they wanted it to be a successful record.
So in a way that was quite
a hard job, you know,
but I think it achieved that, definitely.
We knew Letter From America
was the big track on the album
in terms of how we'd reach people -
and we also knew that we'd have to record it with a band,
because you wouldn't get radio play.
Them and Kenny made an inspired choice
with getting Gerry Rafferty, a fellow Scotsman,
someone who had great success in the '70s, to remix that record.
In very blunt, pragmatic terms, that remix gave them a hit -
and they were off.
This band, it's their very first time on top the Pops,
this is a big hit - The Proclaimers, and Letter From America.
WHOOPING
# When you go, will you send back
# A letter from America? #
The power of Gerry Rafferty's production
on Letter From America was so amazing
that it just blew everybody away.
# ..From Miami to Canada... #
I remember being in Chrysalis' offices the Friday it came out,
and the head of the company was dancing around the office.
Cos basically they recouped their money in five days.
# ..To the second chance I wonder how it got on... #
I think it went really well,
and it was the way, I suppose,
we got across to a bigger audience,
and had a...well, had a pretty big hit record.
Yeah. A very big hit record -
and also a record that mentioned Bathgate in it, which I think...
As someone FROM Bathgate,
I think it's the only time that's ever happened.
Probably. Give it time!
There'll be a country music song along pretty soon.
MAYBE there will be. I'm not going to hold my breath.
# Bathgate no more
# Linwood no more
# Methil no more, Irvine no more... #
CHRISTOPHER BROOKMYRE: Two guys with acoustic guitars
singing a song about the Highland Clearances
was not something that was going to shock anybody,
because that's a familiar subject for folk music -
suddenly making it about steel plant closures, you know,
making it "Methil no more", that changed everything.
Suddenly there's an edge to it, it immediately relevant,
and you understand what the song is all about at that point.
# ..Methil no more
# Irvine no more... #
Letter From America came out at a time
when I was getting really involved in politics,
so it wasn't just that my home town
was mentioned in it - which in itself was quite a big thing -
but it was also that it spoke about, you know, something about my country
that was also motivating me to get involved in politics,
so that song, for me,
is the sort of anthem of my teenage years.
And it's also a very political track, of course, as well.
That's just because that's what occurred to you,
or because...that's what you needed to write about?
It was written in...
It must have been written about 198..4? Mm-hm.
It was basically rage at what was going on.
Both of us were disgusted
by the callous way that unemployment was used
to break organised labour, to break...the spirit of people.
Has anger always been a motivating factor for writing?
I think so, I think it should be there.
I think if you can channel it,
and it disnae feel like you're lecturing somebody
or you're boring them.
# ..Take a look up the rail track
# From Miami to Canada... #
People say that's their most political song -
it's not, it's their most romantic, it's absolutely beautiful.
# ..From Wester Ross to Nova Scotia
# We should have held you We should have told you
# But you know our sense of timing
# We always wait too long... #
It has a huge theme of loss and, you know,
longing for something that you've lost, even if you haven't lost it -
people weep about that song who've never BEEN to Scotland before!
Because they're thinking about their OWN losses,
something they've left behind that they can't ever recapture.
It's the authentic feeling
of humanity that absolutely
underpins all The Proclaimers' work.
They really understand what it's like to be human.
# ..Lochaber no more. #
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So when you came to record that first album,
you had those songs all ready to go.
Yes. So tell us about the writing process.
The first record was written in the flat in Edinburgh.
I just remember, like, afternoons in Edinburgh
being when we were on the dole
and just writing and writing and writing.
Just sort of sitting facing each other...?
Yeah, throwing ideas about. Erm...
And if we got an idea for a tune we would both try lyrics
and then we'd stick with what the better lyrical idea was... Right.
..and kind of work on that, and just playing it,
but a lot of...just trying to strengthen the voices,
and make it powerful.
The Proclaimers' music is...
a great photograph,
sonic photograph of the time.
It's kind of like a diary -
and they've got a very diaristic way of writing, so...
It's sort of like a couple of Scottish guys' journal
that you're looking at, and it's got a soundtrack to it.
If you think about the poppiness of the hooks -
the tunes, they're all catchy, they burn themselves into your head.
And then when you look at the hooky lyrics -
I mean, how can you not love a song that starts
"There's a touch upon my lips, left by memory's fingertips"?
That's a Patsy Cline song.
# There's a touch upon my lips
# Left by memory's fingertips
# I still hear her voice when there's no sound... #
KEVIN ROWLAND: As songwriters, I think they're genius, actually.
And the thing about them is they've got the common touch.
They seem like natural songwriters.
Therefore the arrangements come easy, etc.
# When I saw her first it was lust, my friend
# Thought it would burn then it would end
# But I lost my old philosophy... #
You don't think - and this is the real art to it -
you don't think, "Oh, there's Craig and Charlie
"just singing another song about breaking up with a woman."
You listen to the song, and...
you do that with very good songwriters. You listen to the song.
One thing I know is good lyrics.
Mm. That's the main thing,
it's good lyrics.
Craig is er...
a little bit dark.
He is!
And that's good. I don't know if...
Charlie's lyrics
are not so, er...
dark,
but it's yin and yang. Oh.
# When I was a younger man... #
JUSTIN CURRIE: I'm not sure if they've ever written a BAD song -
but even if they're writing a love song, it'll be very blunt.
They can be incredibly romantic,
and they can elicit very powerful emotions
whether it's pride or whether it's sadness...
and they do it without
appearing to be pretentious or really trying too hard.
# I want to spend my life with you... #
It's like they've built a...
you know, they've built a Jaguar from the most basic Lego set,
they don't even have a Meccano set.
I think that's amazing.
# ..I can't conceive of the years left to me... #
Will you worry over a lyric?
Because your lyrics seem very witty, very crafted...
Yeah. It's not...
I wouldn't say it was worrying.
I'm certainly not a perfectionist,
and I don't envy those who ARE perfectionists.
If you got the feeling at the beginning,
the rest comes - you shift the key, or you...
you learn to hit the note that you cannae hit -
but if you got the feeling at the beginning, there's no worries.
What, sort of, creative arguments do you ever have?
I mean, is it all quite...?
Maybe more in the past, I think. Right. And you would...
I don't know if we ever argued... I don't think we ever argued about a subject matter.
I don't think any subject matter was off-limit.
Maybe you would ask whether it was good enough or not.
But you don't fall out about...
If we've got something that one of us really doesn't like,
then we don't do it.
We don't do it, the veto is there.
If there's something that we don't...a song,
then we won't do it.
There's never a question of either of you working without the other?
Sooty and Sweep.
LAUGHTER
I think it's unlikely, David.
Aye. I think if we get through to the age we've got to now,
you know, I think the solo career and doing some of my numbers
with the London Philharmonic is not going to happen.
I'd like to see that. It's a lovely idea, isn't it?
I'd like to see both your numbers with the London Philharmonic.
That would please the public, wouldn't it?
Well, The Proclaimers' new album has already gone silver.
It's only been out a few days. Here's the first hit from it.
It's at number 14, an old record of the week.
I love it. I'm Gonna Be, The Proclaimers!
Most artists have to contend with
difficult second album syndrome.
# When I wake up... #
Not so with Craig and Charlie.
Released just one year later,
Sunshine On Leith featured their biggest hit to date
and brought them to an international audience.
# I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you... #
Sunshine On Leith was a massive album,
with some massive hits on it, of course,
which took you on a, kind of, global journey.
Yeah. Was that something you were expecting?
No... Or wishing for?
No, it wasn't. I'm glad it happened.
You know, we recorded the record
and we knew it was a really good record,
we were very proud of it,
and we knew that I'm Gonna Be would be the first single.
# But I would walk 500 miles
# And I would walk 500 more
# Just to be the man... #
It became a huge hit in lots of different countries
and that song was the one that took us round the world.
# I'm gonna be the man who's working hard for you... #
I remember that it was banned in the US by certain radio stations
and it was because the DJs didn't understand some of the language -
in particular, the word "haver".
And they suspected that it had some kind of sexual context.
It's very revealing that their default assumption
was that it was some sort of sexual perversion.
In fact, there was one American radio station that...
The quote they gave was something along the lines of,
"We don't know what it means, but we suspect it's subversive."
And the great irony, of course, is what the word actually means,
which would be the perfect summation of all of the American DJs
who were banning it.
It means you're talking shite.
# And if I haver Yeah I know I'm gonna be
# I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you... #
I'd have to say 500 Miles is my favourite Proclaimers song.
It's basically Scotland's national anthem.
They should just change it, just...
I mean, Flower Of Scotland's nice and everything,
but it should be 500 Miles.
# But I would walk 500 miles
# And I would walk 500 more... #
Yeah, the song was written, we were...
It was when we were touring with the first acoustic record
and we were playing up in Aberdeen
and I was getting picked up in an hour
and I just sat down at an electric piano
and I started playing
and it came in, like, 45, 50 minutes,
the whole lot, everything.
One of the quickest songs I've ever written.
It was just like it was writing itself.
# When I come home When I come home
# Oh, I know I'm gonna be
# I'm gonna be the man who... #
It's the reason we're able to carry on making records.
Oh, really? Is it that significant?
I think, in terms of what it's brought in over the years,
it pays for new records.
Right. It pays for tours. It underpins everything we do, yeah.
I mean, you've had... Letter From America was a big hit,
I'm On My Way was a big hit... But nothing on that scale.
Just a different scale, is it?
Something about it - it's indestructible, that record.
# And I would walk 500 miles
# And I would walk 500 more... #
Does the fact that it's been so huge over so many years,
does it ever rankle?
Do you ever want to go, "Listen to our new things"?
No, no. The benefits completely outweigh the negatives.
You wouldn't play a gig without it. No. No.
We wouldn't get out alive. It's not like...
It's not like The Beach Boys or something,
where you've had that many hits, you want to do medleys and stuff.
We've only had a handful of hit songs.
So you do... If you're playing for an hour-and-a-half,
you do the handful of hit songs that you've got,
a few other ones that people might know,
but it's not something that we have to worry about,
because we haven't been that successful.
Oh, I don't know about that.
I mean successful as in having hit after hit after hit. Right.
Thanks. This is called Cap In Hand.
So, Cap In Hand, specifically,
that came out of your desire for an independent Scotland.
Yes, yes.
We are absolutely total believers
that Scotland should be an independent country
and I find it difficult when you meet people
who have never given it a thought, or completely opposed,
and that's...
I can't understand them.
# I can't understand why we let someone else rule our land
# We're cap in hand... #
And do you write a song like that in the hope that you will,
sort of, proselytise and change people's minds?
No - it comes from the same... It comes from the same root
as love songs, I think,
and all of them, it's that you're feeling...
You feel something inside
and you express it through music, and you're hopefully...
You're getting a tune that's memorable
and you're getting a lyric
that is...that is actually going to make somebody think.
Not necessarily change their mind or persuade them,
but just that they are actually going to listen to it.
# We fight, when they ask us
# We boast, then we cower
# We beg
# For a piece of
# Ready, ready, ready, ready... What's already ours... #
Their songs, over the past 30 years have, in many respects,
been the soundtrack to Scotland's political journey
and I think that has made the politics much more accessible,
at times, to younger generations and brought politics alive -
you know, not just Letter From America,
but songs like Cap In Hand, you know...
Really, in very simple terms, but in beautifully lyrical terms,
telling Scotland's story in that way, I think,
was hugely important.
Politicising, small "p",
politicising a generation of young Scots like me.
I learned from it, because I grew up in an affluent area,
went to private school, you know,
middle-class Jewish boy, and listening to Cap In Hand,
hearing this other view, was...was illuminating.
I think they've been incredibly important as a protest band.
I think they are one of the most important
Scottish protest bands there's ever been.
You don't have to believe in the same political outcome
that they want to believe that what they sing about
is beautiful and right.
What you've got to understand
about listening to bands like The Proclaimers,
it's folk music, right?
And folk music is of our island.
You know? And that's what we talk about -
we talk about love and politics and history and all sorts of things.
It is part of our culture, and it's part of our culture to,
when we get on stage, tell people what you think, so...
Simple as that, isn't it?
# My heart was broken
# Sorrow, sorrow
# Sorrow, sorrow... #
Sunshine On Leith was a single, too, wasn't it?
It was, it was the second or the third single.
Yeah. And it didn't... It didn't chart.
They wanted us to do a big edit on it and we said no.
The song had to... It's nearly six minutes long,
so it's no' going to get a lot of play on radio, you know?
But Sunshine On Leith, again,
I think, is one of those songs that has become bigger down the years.
People, they hear it, and it goes in
and then when you actually start playing live shows,
that is probably the one that connects you to the audience,
more than...even more than 500 Miles.
# While the Chief
# Puts Sunshine On Leith
# I'll thank him for his work
# And your birth and my birth
# Yeah, yeah, yeah... #
Sunshine On Leith, it's just...
You know, it's this beautifully nostalgic song
that just makes me cry
every time I hear it, even though it's like...
It's, like, anthemic crying.
SHE LAUGHS
# You saw it
# You claimed it
# You touched it
# You saved it...
It's a good song, and...
..it's in the spirit of folk and rock.
The writing on it is so pared down.
It feels like a really personal, intimate song
about a specific feeling
between two people, and yet, you know,
it's the best football song you'll ever hear, you know?
10,000 people on the terraces can sing it
and everybody is going to be in tears.
# My heart was broken... #
Well, Sunshine On Leith was an unlikely song
for football fans to have adopted.
It's got an unlikely metre.
They do like something that's a bit more tub-thumping,
and they do tend to like something that
has an element of goading in it.
And it doesn't - it's a lilting and quite melancholy song.
You only understand how well it works when, suddenly,
there is 10,000 folk singing it in a football stadium.
# While I'm worth
# My room on this earth... #
That's when you know you've got something. Yeah.
If your own people sing your own song,
then nobody is forcing them to do it.
They do it of their own...because they feel it, so that's good.
That must be quite moving, you know, as lifelong fans.
I think it is, it's very moving. Yeah...
And it's something that we feel...
It links you more to the club and it's part of, maybe,
the club's culture now, and that's fantastic for us.
CHEERING
I don't think, as Scottish people, we're necessarily famous
for our emotional accessibility.
Is that something you use your music to access?
Or is that something... Are you very touchy-feely people?
No, we're not at all.
The music is the thing that we channel that...
I think, to be a creative person, you want to create,
you want to express yourself.
That's the first thing, whatever it is that you're doing.
And we've expressed ourselves through our music
and we do it to the absolute best that we can, 100%.
Life is short, you never know when it's going to end
and you've got to give everything you've got.
# Beautiful, beautiful
# Beautiful truth
# Don't leave because I can't see you... #
I think the whole thing about The Proclaimers is the truth.
They look in real life as they look onstage
and they sound in real life as they sound onstage.
It's unfettered, it hasn't been tampered with.
What you see is what you get and people respond to that.
Do you find that the more honest you can, sort of, push yourself to be,
the more of a response you get from the audience?
I think that is usually the case, or it's very often the case.
I don't think it's always the case.
I remember Kevin Rowland saying to me, many, many years ago, that...
..there was certain sections of the audience, or any audience,
who didn't really like stuff too real,
and I think there is a section that really don't.
And I think, in any song, in any art form,
you can get so real that you might even be pushing your own fans away.
But I think, generally speaking, if you can be as honest as you can,
you do get a better response, but not always.
I think it embarrasses them.
It makes them look at things they don't want to look at.
I think that's what it is.
Yeah...
I mean, it confronts them to face things they don't want to face.
I think when you're confronted with that kind of openness and honesty,
you're wondering whether
there's some kind of...some ulterior motive at work,
and I don't think it is - I think it's just a real, raw openness
that you are presented with.
The success of Sunshine On Leith was followed by a top 10 hit
with their King Of The Road EP in 1990,
and then the album Hit The Highway in 1994,
which contained the top 40 hit Let's Get Married.
# We've been going together... #
But then Craig and Charlie became strangely silent.
They wouldn't release another album until Persevere,
seven years later.
You wait years for the next album. I mean, years.
What were they doing for those seven or eight years?
Do you know?
Both our wives were having children, you know...
I think we needed a rest, as well, after, kind of,
especially the Sunshine On Leith thing.
I think that when your life is in a different place,
especially with children coming along,
then you kind of feel your priorities are somewhere else.
Hm. In retrospect, it was a good thing because it stopped us getting
jaded with the road, you know?
I think if you're on the road all the time,
then you do get jaded with it.
# We are born innocent
# Found guilty
# Living life is treated like a crime We are... #
So how did working with Edwyn Collins come about?
We initially worked with Edwyn when he was producing the music
for the film version of The Slab Boys by John Byrne,
and he was getting different singers
to come into his studio in West Hampstead and do songs.
We did a couple of rock 'n' roll songs.
We enjoyed meeting Edwyn,
admired what he'd done in his own career,
and really enjoyed the studio,
really enjoyed the kind of relaxed atmosphere, had a great time there,
so we felt that we could do a whole album with him,
and we did the next album with Edwyn,
and it was really a very, very enjoyable experience
and it felt very natural, and Edwyn did a really good job on it.
# Born innocent
# Found guilty
# Every time. #
Charlie and Craig were prepared immediately. Yeah, immaculately.
Yeah, yeah. And they're very clear about what they want.
Yeah, yeah. And very experienced by that time, as well. It's true.
Immediately, it was a balance...
Edwyn's pretty mad in the studio. He's like a mad professor.
What a brilliant combination, Edwyn Collins producing The Proclaimers.
What a great idea.
In terms of the songs and in terms of the vibe in the studio
and in terms of how everybody was getting on, and how it worked,
I think probably the most enjoyable record - for me, anyway - that we've made over the years. Right.
Just the sound of people, four or five people, you know,
playing music and just loving it, and Edwyn gets it.
# You've been let down Messed around
# Told to get your feet back on the ground
# When you should have been... #
It was two great Scottish institutions coming together.
Edwyn by that time had this great studio in London,
which was stuffed full of vintage kit,
no bells and whistles, which is just how Craig and Charlie like it.
One of the songs, Charlie's voice...
Blows the capsules? Blows the capsule in the microphone, so...
it's loud, but it's the power, isn't it? Yeah.
It's the power, which is different to loudness, isn't it? Yeah.
It was fairly, fairly loud.
Ah-ha. Isn't it?
Is it true that you broke some of Edwyn Collins' gear?
If it isn't true, it should be, you know?
It's always been an ambition of mine.
When you hear some of the old stuff like Little Richard records,
Larry Williams, and the vocals are so high, that they distort the mic.
It was real exciting, that. Half Edwyn's gear was from the 1920s.
It was a lot of old gear, it's very...
Some of it worked and some of it didn't, so if-if we broke his mic,
we'll accept responsibility. He's got that thing...
His studio had that thing of, you know, you think,
"Things happen here."
# But all your detractors
# Underestimated you
# Cos they don't know you like I do. #
The songs that you sing and the way you sing them,
they have such a personality, the syncopation,
the kind of guttural noises that you sprinkle through and all that -
was that something that just emerged?
Yeah! Guttural noises! That's one way of putting it. We deserve that.
You know, with your "uh"s! It's just the way...it-it is.
I think probably a lot of it is the people you enjoyed listening to.
Exactly. You know, I never wanted to sound like somebody... No.
..but you take...you absorb it. Yeah.
And so you get people...
We always admired people who could actually sing,
and by sing I mean actually project their voice.
See, a lot of people who can sing have got very good voices
but they cannae actually belt it.
# I met you
# I met you. #
I think when they're sounding angry, they sound like two voices
in competition, and they sound like twins, they sound like two twins
who are fighting for...food, really - that's how raw they sounded,
like two little kids at a table, going, "Me!" "Me!" "Me!" Like that.
# I met you. #
This call and response... and not many artists have this kind of chemistry,
where one starts, one finishes, one ends, one begins,
and it's just a blend of powerful musical genius.
# Broke off from my work the other day
# Spent the evening thinking about all the blood... #
You can definitely hear the influence of Dexys, Kevin Rowland's
vocal gymnastics, you can hear in both of their voices.
# When you go will you send back... #
And it's particularly Craig's voice. It's kind of righteous, you know?
He's not taking any prisoners,
and that's not something that he's decided to do.
That's, like, inherent in him.
He sings it with total conviction and total belief, and again,
it's not like a forced thing, it's not like that,
it's just...you know, you can't really not believe him.
I think Charlie is a great singer in his own right, actually,
and I'd like to hear him sing more.
Over the years, The Proclaimers' success has continued to grow.
# I'm on my way from misery to happiness today
# Ah-ha Ah-ha Ah-ha Ah-ha
# I'm on my way... #
I'm Gonna Be earned them a gold disc in America after featuring
in films such as Benny and Joon, The Bachelorette and Pitch Perfect.
And of course, a certain green ogre brought I'm On My Way
to the attention of a whole new generation of fans.
More recently, playwright Stephen Greenhorn used the raw materials
of Craig and Charlie's songs to create the hit musical Sunshine On Leith.
Craig and Charlie have even been stretching their own acting muscles,
however briefly,
with an appearance in the film version of Sunshine On Leith,
as cartoons in Family Guy
and also with super fan Matt Lucas in a music video
he directed for them.
Oh, look at that!
I came up with this idea
to do a home video,
of an anniversary party.
Go away!
I'd written these two old lady characters,
and I hadn't thought,
"Oh, I'll ask Craig and Charlie to play the old ladies,"
and then it was only when I rewrote it, I thought, "Of course!
"Of course! I'll get them in drag!" It's what I do.
# Are you happy now Say yeah... #
How much persuasion did that take?
It took... He did it the right way.
He said, "The video we'll do this way - you'll be singing in a corner
"and then we'll get a couple of old ladies doing the stuff," and then...
"That's a great idea," then they came back a few days later,
"Would you be the old ladies?"
I thought... I wouldn't play him at cards.
At first, they were very reticent and they said they're not
dressing up in drag, and then, I don't know.
I don't know what made them change their mind.
Maybe I got the correct bra size and they were finally convinced.
He did it...
He did it well, and it was a very, very enjoyable day,
and it was an enjoyable experience.
Once the boys had made the decision to drag up, well,
they couldn't get into those clothes fast enough.
# Let me rephrase that I think there's a better line there
# Spinning around in the air. #
You're not going to... It's not something I want to pursue, no.
..tour like that? No. Oh, well, well done for trying. Thank you.
If the music career ever takes a dip,
we could reboot Little Britain and Charlie and Craig could take
our roles, because they were very natural.
That's it. Party's over.
GROANING
Fascist! Right!
You always do a great gig. Do you still get nervous?
Do you still get the fear?
BOTH: Yeah. We do. Not as much as we used to.
Sometimes you get nerves and you don't know why it's happening,
you know? I think it's always good to have that. It's... Yeah.
You should never take anything for...
You shouldn't be on auto-pilot at all. No. No.
You should be going in there and the energy should be going
through you, cos that's what's going to communicate
what you're thinking and feeling to the audience.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
INTRO TO I'M GONNA BE (500 MILES) PLAYS
We have a larger audience now cos we've played so many shows,
we've been all over the place, and if you keep delivering,
I think people keep coming back.
# Yes I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who's working hard for you... #
I mean, they have a Presbyterian work ethic, which is staggering.
They just tour and write and perform, and they don't stop,
and they carry on being political activists at the same time.
That's really Scottish.
I love that! I love that very much.
No indolence in The Proclaimers.
# And I would walk 500 miles
# And I would 500 more... #
I'm good friends with a great singer called Robyn Hitchcock, and
he said to me when he saw me play for the first time, he goes, "Oh!
"You've got the Scottish boot!"
I went, "What do you mean, the Scottish boot?"
And he goes, "The Scottish boot just goes like that,
"all the way through the song."
And it was just, like, I saw it then.
# Da da lat da (Da da lat da)
# Da da lat da da da lat da... #
Honestly, I feel like if you went into the wardrobes of a collection
of Scottish artists, myself and The Proclaimers included,
the left heel of every pair of shoes is going to be an inch
shorter than the right!
# And I would walk 500... #
I think, I think they're great performers because they're
very in the moment as performers.
They're just totally in it, and it's kind of what it's all about, really.
CHEERING AS SONG ENDS
The reality is that you don't get remembered for many things.
You get remembered for a few things,
and so in truth, The Proclaimers probably will be remembered
for I'm Gonna Be and, er...that's...that's great!
I mean, it's a brilliant song.
I think people will look back at The Proclaimers and go, "Utter legends.
"Utter, utter legends."
There's never been anybody like them before and I think we'll have
to wait a long time to see anything similar.
# I'm not gonna talk about it I'm not gonna talk about it
# I'm not gonna talk about it I'm not gonna talk about it. #
Their true value isn't going to be understood until they've gone,
and then people are going to look back on
a body of work which is kind of incomparable.
I'm convinced that my grandkids will be going,
"God, did you see them live?! Did you see these guys live?"
# I'm not gonna talk about it... #
Legacy. We'll leave that to the likes of Tony Blair to worry about!
Legacy. We'll all be six foot under. It won't much matter. No!
I'm thinking about being... Immortal?
No. 180.
Oh, before you die? Yeah!
# When I started walking to Wishaw
# My eyes obscured my vision... #
I think one of their legacies will be that you can sing about
specifically local things, in their case, Scottish things,
whether it's politics or culture,
and have an international appeal.
# I walked through the country I walked through the town
# I held my head up And I didn't look down. #
Nobody's going to look back on The Proclaimers and say, "Oh, that was the mainstream,"
do you know what I mean, "That's what people did then!"
Do you know what I mean? "That was the sound of Scotland!"
cos it wasn't, but I think in a way, that gives them a timelessness.
The intention's to keep going? Keep avoiding work. I think we still...
We enjoy it as much if not more... Yeah. ..than we did.
Some people quit too early, don't they, and some people go on
too long, and the trick is to know when to get out,
and if you're no longer up to muster,
then you should quit, and I know we will.
So if we're not... We'll be the first. We won't need to be told.
Well, I hope that won't be for many, many decades yet.
Decades! Very optimistic, David!
# I'm not gonna talk about it
# And I'm not gonna talk about it
# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. #
GRUNTS
CHEERING
Good night, Glasgow!