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Partly cloudyMagazine
South go west to a new home
by David Sue14/12/2006
WHEN Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton first moved to
Manchester three years ago, to settle down with his wife and baby
in West Disbury, he remarked of his new, adopted home city: "I just
like to walk the streets and observe. There's something very
inspiring about the day-to-day life in this city."
The weirdest thing is how it's taken such a long time for Heaton
and his band to be aligned with this city of ours. A band who
became successful and won over the public by making a virtue out of
low expectations and narrow horizons? In many ways, it sounds like
the very essence of the archetypal Mancunian pop group.
Hailing from Hull originally, The Beautiful South have spent the
last 15 years making great pop music about ordinary people trapped
in self-imposed situations.
Although their public image is of woolly, mainstream British pop
treasures (something compounded by the statistic that one in 10
British households has a copy of the band's greatest hits album),
The Beautiful South are actually more in the league of great
British eccentric pop wordsmiths.
Since forming the band some17 years ago from the ashes of The
Housemartins, Heaton has proved himself to be one of British pop
music's sharpest and most acerbic life observers, marrying wit and
dark pathos to stirring effect.
Beautiful South songs such as Old Red Eyes Is Back, Don't Marry Her
and A Little Time make for unlikely British pop classics.
All are songs which are drenched in dark themes like regret,
melancholy and depression but, thanks to Heaton's witty way with a
lyric and his band's soulful musical delivery, every Beautiful
South song oozes a sense of lift-your-glass bonhomie.
Although hardly selling records in the vast quantities they used
to, The Beautiful South still attract large audiences and they
remain a top "live" proposition.
Heaton's move to Manchester, his settled domestic life and his
subsequent commitment to being a teetotaller have given his band a
new lyrical perspective. Most notably, their hit single earlier in
the year titled Manchester, a joyous, jaunty song which celebrated
our city's frequent bad weather.
Still, wherever he lives and whatever he's drinking, you can
guarantee that Heaton and The Beautiful South will find something
to observe and turn it into awesome pop majesty.
The Beautiful South are at the MEN Arena tonight
(Friday).
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