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midnight walking
composers
Written by: Kerr / Burchill / Gillespie
publisher
℗ JKMCBucks Music Group Ltd / Hornall Brothers Music Ltd / Copyright Control (2014 - 2017)
℗ BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd / Copyright Control (2018 - )
background
"Almost a year ago Simple Minds travelled 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.
Our destination was the Norwegian city of Tromso; the mission was to take part in the city festival. We spent
a few days only, but it was sufficient time to know that thanks to the natural environment etc - we were
in a remarkable part of the world."
"On arrival, we had immediately made plans to try and get out into the countryside later on that evening.
Reason for this, was that we had been told that although no guarantee, there was maybe a chance to see the
mysterious and spectacular Aurora Borealis, perhaps more commonly known as "The Northern Lights"."
"The idea of witnessing this cosmic event from within the artic circle has huge appeal to me and
I was really excited with the prospect of meeting up after dinner to go out "Midnight Walking". Oh I should
mention that the temperature was well below the rather mild zero that we frequently experience during
Scottish winters. Man, it was cold!"
"In any case, after heading up into the hotel gym, and then after having a chat with our lighting engineer
Steve Pollard, I went back to my room to listen to a piece of music that
Andy Gillespie had let me hear earlier that day. Not much more than a loop
that ran for a couple of minutes, but it had a great upbeat feel, it was insanely catchy also."
"I recall not much more after this as I then fell into the deepest sleep, only to be woken a few hours
later by none other that Charlie Burchill informing that we had been told
that if we jumped into a car and drove out of town, the "chances of seeing the lights" were 95%."
"That sounded great. But being so tired, groggy even, I could barely move. I told Charlie
to count me out, no other option other than to wish him well with "The Midnight Walking", freezing cold,
as it would be. I put down the phone and immediately went back to my obscure dreams."
"I may have then "slept the sleep of a thousand sleeps" and was grateful for it. But at 4AM I was wide-awake, which
no big deal really, as usually I get up between 5 and 5:30AM most days. However it is not every day I wake
with music pounding through me as it was on this occasion. Neither is it everyday I grab a notebook
and start writing words before I have even showered. But I did on this dark Tromso morning and I am ever so glad
about that."
"Later that day, after soundcheck and before the show, Andy Gillespie
brought a microphone to my room. We recorded some of the words I had written that morning and matched to the
music that he had given me only 24 hours prior."
"Sometimes an idea takes a while to take over, and to be honest, with so many musical ideas flying around,
it is common that some ideas get lost a while. It is then that fate sometimes takes over, or more realistically,
an idea somehow forgotten magically turns up randomly on an MP3 player that has been lying around untouched for months."
"Making you then stop in your tracks, and thinking, Wow! Such was the recent case with that "Tromso Tune."
"Yesterday in Real World studios, along with some other songs, I finally got to work a little bit more on
Andy's tune. Unfortunately I did not get to see nature do its most wonderful
show that night in Tromso. Charlie and some of the rest did though. Lucky guys."
"But I did come out of it with the backbone of an exciting new song. It is called "Midnight Walking" and it is
buzzing around my brain as I write."
Jim Kerr
7th February 2013
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Midnight Walking was mentioned again by Jim during his interview with
Todd Richards for Some Sweet Day 2013. Written by Andy Gillespie,
the track was recognised as a potential lead single for the forthcoming album.
"New tunes - best live songs? Light Travels was played
for the second time in the last three days. With this new arrangement it could perhaps become one
of our best live songs. Similarly, Big Music and brand new
tunes Human,
Midnight Walking,
Spirited Away, are all due to start featuring in the live set. We
need to start airing them now in order to have them sounding great for the
planned summer shows." - Jim, 17th February 2014
Midnight Walking became the third song to be released from Big Music when
a full preview appeared on consequenceofsound.net
on the 21st October 2014.
JK: "One of the things I've enjoyed most about the album is the collaborations outside
just the songs Charlie and I write. And as usual, we had a large pool of songs more than one album's worth and
although the vast majority of them are ideas that Charlie
comes up with and then feeds me this time around there
were two or three other writers involved and one of the main writers is Andy Gillespie
who although he has been
playing keyboards for Simple Minds for a long time now it's the first time
Andy has, however, been involved in writing."
AG: "Midnight Walking is a track I had been working on with
Jim.
Charlie came up
with an absolutely blistering guitar line and it transformed the track, it just gave it an edge. The kind of edge we
were looking for at the end. It's classic
Burchill."
JK: "We were on tour we were in a place
called Tromso which is just inside the Arctic Circle.
It's an amazing place because you can see the Northern Lights very clearly there in fact, it's a big part of the local
tourism. We'd arrived the night before the gig and it was arranged, literally, for everyone to go out midnight walking,
to see the lights. Unfortunately, in my case, I fell asleep and never made it. [Laughs] But when I spoke to the guys
in the morning, they'd had the most amazing time going out into the wilds and they'd seen this cosmic light show."
JK: "Then I thought 'I'm going to write a song inspired by the idea of going out
midnight walking.' Not particularly in the Arctic Circle."
AG: "And I think that's the thing I'm most proud of. When you sit down at a piano and play
then it's most obviously a piano. OK, it has an inherent atmosphere but it maybe hasn't got the atmosphere of
Aurora Borealis or walking about in the Arctic Circle at midnight and you have to conjure up soundscapes that might in
some way reflect that. So if I've managed to achieve that then I think that's job done."
Band Interviews
Big Music Deluxe DVD
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MH: Moving through the record Big Music we're onto
track number two. I really like this track. It's a song called Midnight Walking.
And I notice on this that the writing is Kerr,
Burchill and Gillespie. Can you
tell me a bit about it?
JK: Yes. Andy Gillespie - it's funny because we still call him
one of the new guys, but Andy Gillespie has been playing with
Simple Minds now since 2002 so we're talking about the best part of twelve, nearly thirteen years,
actually. And Andy is more than just than just a muso. He's a creative person
and we've been encouraging him to come up with stuff and to come up with ideas and it's taken a long time but
as soon as I heard the music to Midnight Walking which chiefly was
Andy's I thought "This is a beauty" and it had a sort of dancey element
to it. It does a great little logo at the start of it to me it was very much like a Kraftwerk logo but not
just like it, I think it was as good as some of the Kraftwerk logos. I mean a real great, great pop hook.
But we had a problem in a sense that coming out of just being Andy's there
was a little bit of an identity crisis because it wasn't that it was generic but it wasn't until when
Charlie came in with the second half of the song I think
Midnight Walking features one of Charlie's
best guitar breaks for years that it truly became a Simple Minds song. The great ballads of the classic
Simple Minds that I was mentioning earlier but you had this electro dance beat that some would say is
contemporary.
MH: Talking about Andy being the new keyboard player is like
saying Mel Gaynor is the new drummer, who came in on the fifth record.
He is a real big part of Simple Minds in terms of everything he does. And I know luckily enough
I've got to work with Andy and his work rate is just incredible.
He really, really puts a lot into it.
JK: Yes, it's funny you say that, I just left him about an hour ago we're currently in the studio
in Glasgow, rehearsal studio, because we're about to tour next year and we thought we'd get some rehearsals in this
side of the year, allowing us a break over Christmas, and then we'll pick it up again. Anyway,
Andy's a kind of a band leader, in that situation, he's a sort of group
leader he's very organised, he's very much a tech-head as well, he's been a great, great player and dependable. I
mean the likes of Charlie and I we're much more spontaneous, we'll
fly in, we'll turn things upside down but you need a real great nuts and bolts guy then
Andy's the guy and he can... if there's something going round and he'll
analyse the rhythms or he'll have a good dialogue with the rest of the musicians, he's very good that way he's
almost like a sort of school teacher in that sense in the line-up next year we've got a girl called
Catherine AD who's joining us for the first time for this tour and
Catherine's from a younger generation, she's never worked anything
on this scale and it's just been great to see how Andy talks to her and
encourages her and puts her at ease and gets the best out of her so all of those roles rather belong to
Andy, but it's great that he's mov ing into coming up with melodies as well.
MH: It's funny you say that talking about Catherine AD
coming in and Andy doing that and the thing about Simple Minds
is that you always invest in the people Jim we've talked about this
before and it keeps on giving this extra life to Simple Minds. I mean you and
Charlie you're the driving forces and it's great that you bought
Catherine in and
Andy and I saw you bring Andy in and you
and Charlie did with Andy
and now he's doing the same with Catherine and that's that constant
investment. It's a great thing.
JK: Well, that's right. The down side about that let's be honest, very few bands retain the same
line-up for more than ten years, some do, but very few do. And the ones that do there will be strengths within that but
there must be great frustrations as well, playing with the same people. But, anyway, in
Simple Minds' case, as you know as many people who know Simple Minds story our
lineup started to fragment our original lineup started to fragment after about ten years. And that was tough for us
for about the following decade because you're when you lose original members, it's always hard to get out of the prejudice
when a lot of people think of you as a zombie band or something. You just going around because you don't know what else to do.
But in our case, what we did was, we do invest in people, even going back to the
Lisa Germanos,
Robin Clarks and stuff, we really do.
JK: When we play live, we want it to be a great gig but we also want it to have an element of show. And
it's great to bring in these people, especially when they're more than just appendages, they're stars themselves, let's
face it. We're quite often bring them to an audience that has just, until then, not heard of them, other they're on the verge
on being stars, after the experience with us they grow wings and they off and do their own solo albums and that stuff. But
it really benefits the band it benefits, we get tons out of it, the show gets tons out of it, and again we were brought
up with sport and in our case football but you could use it for basketball, you could use it to baseball, you could use it
to American Football - it's about the team, it's about having a great squad and it's about investing in new talent. Because
that energises, refreshes, gives you something you haven't got and why wouldn't you?
MH: Before we go on to the next song, we're going to play the track we've been talking about,
Midnight Walking. And before we play it we talked about
Andy being a co-writer, and I know you won't admit to this but all
this happens because of the generosity of yourself and of Charlie. And that
generosity pays back into Simple Minds. And you'll hear it in this track so this is a track written
by Charlie Burchill,
Jim Kerr and
Andy Gillespie. This is Midnight Walking.
Martin Hanlin The Real McCoy KX 93.5
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As already mentioned, it was three years ago this week that our last album
Big Music was released.
Fans who know that record will undoubtedly have their favourite tracks, as indeed they will for all the albums that
are in their respective collections.
Obviously I also have my own preferences, albeit I do change my mind from time to time.
Honest Town,
Spirited Away,
Big Music and Midnight Walking would
certainly be among my chosen highlights from
Big Music. In terms of playing them live however - Midnight Walking would
probably be my overall preference.
I simply loved the tune from the first time Andy Gillespie played it to me, and
was determined that we should pursue developing it so much more, despite Charlies initial
lack of enthusiasm.
To be fair though, Charlie did eventually come round, and made a stunning contribution
to Andys tune via one of his trademark, searing guitar solos. That contribution
certainly sealed the deal for me - in terms of turning something that was already strikingly good - into something great.
Only my opinion of course!
Alternately it was Andys input that contributed the missing dimension to a tune that
Charlie came up with and would later emerge as the title track
Big Music - another tune that just worked so great live, particularly as an encore song.
Andys contribution to
Big Music was therefore more than considerable, as indeed his high level of
contribution to Simple Minds has been throughout the hundreds of gigs performed since he first made his
Minds debut in Aberdeen Concert Hall in May 2002 - and leading
right up to our Australian tour earlier this year.
Although not involved at the moment, or for that matter during the most recent acoustic tour, it would nevertheless be very
wrong to assume that we wouldnt be on the phone to Andy at some point in the
future, or as soon as the need again arises.
No doubt about it. He has truly been an outstanding ally, supporter, and all round contributor to our musical cause to date.
And it is certainly worth us taking the time to point that out at this moment in time.
Jim 7th November 2017
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lyrics
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In the age where its essential to make it transcendental,
We're going out Midnight Walking,
Going through heatwave and through snow.
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discography
Radio Edit (3:35)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Programming by Andy Gillespie
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown, Clinton Outten AKA Roachie and Andy Gillespie
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Album Version (3:53)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Programming by Andy Gillespie
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown, Clinton Outten AKA Roachie and Andy Gillespie
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Instrumental (3:53)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Programming by Andy Gillespie
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown, Clinton Outten AKA Roachie and Andy Gillespie
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Live Version (February-May 2015) (5:01)
Recorded: Big Music Tour 2015
Recorded By: Olivier Gerard
Mixed By: Olivier Gerard at Jet Studios
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Johnson Somerset Remix (9:07)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Programming by Andy Gillespie
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown, Clinton Outten AKA Roachie and Andy Gillespie
Remixed by Johnson Somerset
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Live Version (24th October 2018) (5:12)
Recorded: Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles, California, USA
Recorded by: Olivier Gerard
Produced by: Andy Wright
Mixed by: Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by: Lewis Chapman
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videography
Album Version (Segment) (1:41)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Gavin Goldberg and Clinton Outten AKA Roachie
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Album Version (3:52)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown
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Live Version (7th April 2015) (5:06)
Recorded: Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK
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Johnson Somerset Remix (9:07)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Additional Programming by Iain Cook and Steve Osborne
Additional Engineering by Tom Dalgety
Remixed by Johnson Somerset
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downloads
Radio Edit (3:35)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Programming by Andy Gillespie
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown, Clinton Outten AKA Roachie and Andy Gillespie
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Johnson Somerset Remix (9:07)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Programming by Andy Gillespie
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown, Clinton Outten AKA Roachie and Andy Gillespie
Remixed by Johnson Somerset
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A2A Remix (4:18)
Produced by Andy Wright, Gavin Goldberg and Simple Minds
Mixed by Gavin Goldberg
Assisted by Lewis Chapman
Programming by Andy Gillespie
Additional Engineering by John Henry
Backing Vocals by Sarah Brown, Clinton Outten AKA Roachie and Andy Gillespie
Remixed by A2A
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live history
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