FEATURE:
Real Gone Kid
A Deacon Blue Playlist
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CURRENTLY touring…
IN THIS PHOTO: Ricky Ross captured performing with Deacon Blue at Brighton Centre on 20th September, 2025/PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Carter
as part of their The Great Western Road Trip tour, if Deacon Blue are playing near you, then go and get a ticket. I have been listening to the Scottish band’s music since I was a child. Their debut album, Raintown, came out in 1987. It was not long after that when I discovered Deacon Blue. Because they are touring their recent album, The Great Western Road, I wanted to use the opportunity salute this band. Led by Ricky Ross, alongside Lorraine McIntosh, James Prime, Dougie Vipond, Gregor Philp and Lewis Gordon, their eleventh studio album has a mix of looking back and forward. You can buy the album here:
“2025 marks 40 years since Ricky Ross met Dougie Vipond and they started to form Deacon Blue, the songs on ‘The Great Western Road’ reflect the journey the band has taken and remain honest to the age and experience they all share. Ricky Ross: “It’s just the next part of the adventure and it’s as exciting now as it was back in 1988”.
The album will be preceded by the single ‘Late 88’ on 29 November 2024 which fondly remembers the care-free excitement of those early days. ‘The Great Western Road’, recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studios, sees Ricky Ross and (Deacon Blue guitarist and long term collaborator) Gregor Philp return to production duties, having last produced the bands’ Top 5 charting and their last full length album, 2020’s ‘City Of Love’. This album was recorded by Matt Butler, who last worked with the band on their debut, ‘Raintown’”.
Before moving to a playlist, it is worth dropping in parts of a review by The Guardian, who caught Deacon Blue playing the Brighton Centre recently. Perhaps not as appreciated and played as they should be, this is a band who have been a very important part of my life. No denying just how ingrained these songs are in my mind. Their craft with a chorus, melody and lyrics that range from poignant to funny to uplifting, they are one of my favourite groups:
“Their latter-day resurgence might rest on the fact that Ross has minted a songwriting style that, while musically indistinguishable from the band’s purple patch – and thus matching his and McIntosh’s voices, pretty much as they were in the questionable millinery years – lyrically seems intent on growing old with their audience. The Great Western Road’s title track and Mid Century Modern affectingly ruminate on time’s passing, their melancholy flecked with the-best-is-yet-to-come optimism.
There’s also some politics, which comes as a surprise, but probably shouldn’t: beneath the glossy production, Raintown’s hard-bitten stories of Glasgow life carried an implicit critique of Thatcherism’s impact on the city. Tonight, Ross talks about the world being in “deep shit” and offers a glancing reference to welcoming migrants to the UK, while the brooding Your Town, from 1993’s coolly received attempt at post-Achtung Baby reinvention Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, plays out with the faces of Trump, Farage and Putin glowering from the screens.
There’s something heartening about the audience cheering this stuff, but they’re really here for the hits: Chocolate Girl, When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring), Dignity. You can occasionally pick out the influence of Prefab Sprout on Deacon Blue’s sound – and on Raintown’s title track, the Blue Nile’s drizzly urban angst – but refitted for broader appeal, made brawnier and more unashamedly poppy. It was too crowd-pleasing in approach to be critically acclaimed, but nearly 40 years on, even a dedicated naysayer might be forced to concede it worked: as Real Gone Kid hits the pop bullseye dead-on, those crowds are very much still being pleased”.
I am going to finish up there. The supreme Deacon Blue continue to thrill fans after all of these years. Forty years since their inception, there are very few bands who not only last that long but continue to put out material of such high quality! It is testament to their bond and brilliance! Below is a mixtape that properly salutes…
A simply magnificent band.