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bittersweet
composers
Written by: Kerr / Burchill
publisher
JKMC-Bucks Music Group Ltd / Hornall Brothers Music Ltd
background
Bittersweet was the only song from Big Music
not to be mentioned before the album's release.
It was originally demoed during the Black And White 050505 sessions
as Secret Love.
MH: Talking to Jim Kerr from
Simple Minds and I'm going to ask you a question
Jim about – and we've kind of talked about
it before – but it must be difficult to ... because we're going into a song called
Bittersweet. How did
Bittersweet, as a song, end up on the
Deluxe record, but not on the [main] record as it's a great track?
JK: Well, it's a simple answer. They just all can't go on! Something's
got to be left out. But I guess your question is why that was left out and not something
else? And, it's an either or. At the end of the day, we always think, a great tune, as
ong as it gets out and I think most of our fans now, if they're going to buy the album,
if they're going to buy it, they'll spend a couple of bucks more and get the whole deal.
So, it's more kind of symbolically "Oh God, it was left out." But not really. It's there,
it's on iTunes, and it's become a dark horse. It is a lot of people's favourite track.
I mean how did Theme For Great Cities end up on
Sister Feelings Call and not
Sons And Fascination? What would you have left out?
MH: It gets its own credibility by somehow being left out from somewhere.
JK: It does. But it's not, in any way, overlooked.
MH: The work that you do on all the songs – it's the timeframe. But you're
also sure you're painting some sort of picture and that picture has to be a certain size and
fit on something...
JK: Yes, it does. And even though.... it's the same when you come to running
order. You could argue all day: "This is our running order." And usually people will go
"You're right and I can't hear it being any other way now." You kind of get the orders right.
It doesn't mean that you are right because with hindsight, quite often, you go "Oh no, that
should've been this or that should've been that" but it's your thing and somebody has to
call the shot and Charlie and I kind of go "Well, what
are we going to leave out? When's it going to be too much – you were always afraid of making
it too much. You can blow it. ... you know, thirteen songs is too much. There's a tipping point.
MH: I'm going to play these two tracks together and I want to talk about
Liaison as I've known this song and want to listen
to this song. It's always been a favourite of mine and it kept on coming up and it comes again.
And Bittersweet and Liaison – when
you look at them – is there a chance when you look at this new live set that they're – and I
know how many songs that you work on for a live set so you can change it up – do they look if
they're capable of getting into this live set?
JK: They will be an either or. It's so tough. Because you go
"Blindfolded's got to be played,
Midnight Walking's got to be played,
Let The Day's got to be played,
Honest Town's got to be played,
Big Music's got to be played',
it's like "Wow!" So, you know, the tour's going for months and months and you
don't change too many things the first few weeks as you've got to settle down. You don't
want to be chopping and changing and making everyone neurotic and but then it settles down,
and once it's settled down within a week, just before the boredom sets in, you start to tinker
and you think "All right. We'll put this one in and we'll take that out." And gradually the fans
get excited "Oh, they're playing that. I never thought they would play that." And that kind of
thing starts to happen.
Martin Hanlin
The Real McCoy
KX 93.5
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The song wasn't included on Big Music Live 2015 as
the band only had one usable recording but the performance wasn't judged to be good enough.
lyrics
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The lyrics haven't been published
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discography
Album Version (3:58)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Additional Programming by Andy Gillespie
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live history
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