The Waterboys debut album is effectively a compilation of previously recorded demo’s that were cobbled together to create this. Well, not this exactly. There are chunks of this debut album that I don’t really like and then I happened upon this copy that I now own. It is a Canadian Mini-Album version with only 5 tracks instead of the regular releases 8. It includes all the ones I really like (“A Girl Called Johnny”, “It Should Have Been You” and “Savage Earth Heart”) and omits all the fluff that I wasn’t really interested in and don’t feel like I’m missing out on (“The Three Day Man”, “Gala” and “The Girl In The Swing”), thanx Canada.

Mike Scott and his band Another Pretty Face (who by this time had changed their name to Funhouse and Scott described as sounding “similar to a jumbo jet flying on one engine”) had relocated to London to record. Unhappy with the results and at his record company’s encouragement Scott went into a studio by himself in December 1981 to record some of his own songs with drum machine while he played piano and guitar. From these sessions “December” and “The Three Day Man" made it onto the album. Over the next 10 months or so Scott poached Anto Thistlethwaite and Kevin Wilkinson from Nikki Sudden’s band and recordings continued. 

My copy begins with the strident piano intro to “A Girl Called Johnny” Mike Scott’s paean to Patti Smith. The only thing wrong with it is the stilted nature of the rhythm. The following “I Will Not Follow” while not sounding as good at least has a real drummer so it swings better. Side one of this version ends on my personal favourite “It Should Have Been You”. Over a motorik beat Scott delivers a scathing lyric aimed at someone he obviously once admired but who seemingly let him down by not giving it everything he had (“I saw you hang back now! I watched you hesitate! You're a well respected man, but bullshit! You could've been great!” the exclamation marks are not overdoing it).

Side 2 on this mini version has only two tracks. The epically sweeping “December” (which on the original album is track 1 side 1) is followed by a proper Waterboys classic. “Savage Earth Heart” in this incarnation is quite restrained, acoustic guitars and a drum machine keep it in check. But I’ve seen it performed live on a couple of occasions and it can be a thundering, slashing, savage thing (check out this, slightly ropey, version from The Tube in 1984 https://youtu.be/Z5omMSNSoZE?si=lJRR0u5KhHyiJj-i). It’s a song that still occasionally finds its way into The Waterboys live set

While The Wonder Stuff were recording “Never Loved Elvis” in 1991, producer Mick Glossop (who had produced around half of “This Is The Sea” which was one of a number of reasons he was asked to produce NLE) suggested that this album was a collection of demo’s rather than having being recorded as an album. And you have to listen to it in that light, many of the songs are very constrained by some pretty rudimentary drum machine programming which holds them back in places. But in others you can see the promise Mike Scott would soon realise.

It Should Have Been You - https://youtu.be/y6OYnybdTlE?si=YmLuHdM-2_gViX7k