Tunnel vision

I live in a world seemingly full of Bruce Springsteen devotees. Which is fine, however, please don't try and doorstep me; I won't be hoodwinked by the (almost religious) fervour he brings out among his faithful disciples. That said, I am rather partial to a couple of his songs. Just not when he's singing them. In particular I absolutely love two of the numbers from his Tunnel of Love album: the imagery he evokes, if not directly tangible, is certainly very believable. The first, One Step Up as covered by Gregson & Collister, is sublime. Not a word too many not a word two few in this slice of Americana - a Goldilocks song and no mistake.

The second is one that appears to have been aped a zillion times, not least by Everything But the Girl who covered it on their 1992 tour when promoting their Acoustic covers EP. It's a double rebound song given the full country treatment here by one of Scotland's finest.

★

Camera Obscura - Tougher Than the Rest 

I Could Be Happy

Clive Gregson & Christine Collister in happier times

My admiration of Clive Gregson and his fabulous songs is well documented on this blog. And when a couple of years ago he was throwing songwriting titbits from the top table I made sure I filled my boots (don't you just love mixed metaphors?).
He wrote the haunting I Could Be Happy for the very last Gregson and Collister album and selflessly gave the lead vocal to Christine Collister. Clive recently resurrected a lot of the Gregson and Colllister songs he'd not sung for twenty odd years - since he and Christine split up - and took them on the road with Liz Simcock; unfortunately when the tour came to my local town I had to body serve it as it clashed with another gig on the same night. But Clive's back on tour so I'm sure I'll make up for it.

Gregson and Collister: I Could Be Happy