Charting the strange course of the Blue Nile

An excellent new book about the now-estranged Glasgow band offers a forensic examination of its history and why it is that fans tend to be a tad obsessive

THERE ARE dozens of guitar-shops in New York city. Within each of these shops there are countless guitars for sale. Finding himself on holiday in New York one time, Blue Nile singer Paul Buchanan fell in love with the sound and feel of a particular acoustic in one of these shops. Being Paul Buchanan, he didn’t buy the guitar there and then but went back to his hotel to think about it. That same night Buchanan received a phone call from the band’s bass player Robert Bell.

Coincidentally, Bell was also in New York and that very afternoon while in a guitar shop he had come across a guitar that he thought would just be perfect for Buchanan. He gave him the shop’s name and a detailed description of the guitar. It was the same guitar.

Little wonder author Allan Brown refers more than once to the “hive mind” mentality that existed within The Blue Nile. The three-piece Glasgow band who make music of staggering beauty and inspire a real sense of zealotry among their many fans (“cult members” might be a better description than “fans”) are the most complex, diffident, self-conscious and bewildering musicians you will ever come across.

But you can forgive them anything for the single song Family Life– one of the best moments of popular music history, ever. What other band is there whose work has been covered by artists as diverse as Tom Jones, Mel C, Annie Lennox and Isaac Hayes.

There have only been four albums released since their debut in 1984. To put that into context – the gap between their third and fourth album is greater than that of the entire recording career of The Beatles. But at least two of those albums – A Walk Across The Rooftopsand Hatscan safely be placed alongside Astral Weeks as profound and moving artistic statements.

Brown, a recovering journalist from Glasgow, has produced a mini-masterpiece in his appraisal and analysis of this most ineffable of bands in the just published Nileism – The Strange Course of The Blue Nile.

This is a forensic examination: part cultural history, part geo-psychological exegesis. He skewers them neatly by noting that “their principles can be summarised thus: that the faintly farcical business of being a pop musician could be alleviated only by an intensity of focus; that a condition of anonymity, or effacement at least, was desirable, and that the band’s music was only tenable if it proceeded from some kind of stark musical honesty.”

And speaking of farcical: within these pages you’ll discover how The Blue Nile’s debut single ended up being reviewed by Keith Harris and Orville, and how a US record company, anxious to secure their services, greeted them at a party in Los Angeles with blue drinks, blue food and blue decor.

Interspersed with the narrative are the odd short essays from fans – people from all around the world who just can’t shake off the emotional impact the band’s songs have over them. They talk about songs from 27 years ago the way they would about first loves.

The three band members, now long since estranged, all live within the same Glasgow postcode but any future collaboration is effectively ruled out. Such is their continuing sub rosa status that Paul Buchanan says, to this day, whenever he runs into an old school friend and the conversation turns to music the friend will invariably say to him “Have you heard this amazing band The Blue Nile – you’d love them.”

I think, but am not quite sure, that I did the last ever official Paul Buchanan/Blue Nile interview some five years ago for this newspaper. He is the only interviewee I have ever remained in touch with afterwards. He told me that whenever the band played a sell-out show and there was just one empty seat, he would dwell on that fact for weeks. He also said (this was 2006, and I don’t think he was being humorous) that if he had his way The Blue Nile would still be working on their first album.

Nileism: The Strange Course Of The Blue Nileby Allen Brown is published by Polygon, £14.99