613. The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues (1988)
















Track Listing

1. Fisherman's Blues
2. We Will Not Be Lovers
3. Strange Boat
4. World Party
5. Sweet Thing/Blackbird
6. Jimmy Hickey's Waltz
7. And A Bang On The Ear
8. Has Anybody Here Seen Hank
9. When Will We Be Married
10. When Ye Go Away
11. Dunford's Fancy
12. Stolen Child
13. This Land Is Your Land

Review

I have loved The Waterboys since very early on in my life, probably since I was 3 and This Is The Sea, the previous album came out. So it has been a long relationship indeed, I remember being very young listening to them, and unlike so many things they have lost nothing with time. They are still impressive.

The Waterboys intention of creating a wall-of-sound was already fulfilled with their previous albums, but this one directed them towards and Irish sound which had already been hinted at before but was incredibly more prevalent here. What you end up with is a chaotic, epic, folksy sound that sounds at the same time very authentic and very modern.

This is a pretty great album, if you are interested in folk-rock it is, together with the Pogues, but just below them, some of the better stuff to come out of the 80s, the lyrics are half-literate, half-surreal and often beautiful. The music is always interesting, be it for its chaos and varied instrumentation or mimicry of Irish balladry. Essential any way you look at it.

Track Highlights

1. Fisherman's Blues
2. And A Bang On The Ear
3. We Will Not Be Lovers
4. World Party

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The recording sessions for the album were lengthy and produced a great deal of music. The sessions began at Windmill Lane Studio in Dublin and lasted from January through March of 1986. An additional session took place that December in San Francisco. From March to August of 1987 The Waterboys were recording in Windmill Lane again. Scott moved to Galway and another year passed as the band recorded at Spiddal House, where Scott was living. The entire second side of the original record is made up of recordings from this 1988 session. The album was released that October (see 1988 in music). Scott describes the process; "We started recording our fourth album in early '86 and completed it 100 songs and 2 years later".

Fisherman's Blues at last year's Glastonbury: