The latest Waterboys CD, Book of Lightning, is a musical text comprised of both old and new chapters. So instead of sitting down and writing songs specifically intended for it, leader Mike Scott picked and chose previously unused compositions from various points in his career, and compiled these together for the band’s excellent new release. But returning to his back pages is not an entirely new practice for Scott.
“I have a large collection of unreleased songs,” Scott admits. “And I’ve got them all in a big book in my music room. And every time I make an album, I go through that book to see if there are any songs that I want to be recording this time. There were a couple on one of my solo albums, Still Burning; and the last (Waterboys’) one, Universal Hall, had a couple as well. But I think those are the only times in the past when I used my unreleased stuff.”
One of the new album’s best songs, “Everybody Takes a Tumble,” dates all the way back to the Fishermen’s Blues days - a fertile Waterboys period, indeed. In fact, this revived track name-drops both Sinead O’Conner and Van Morrison, and also sounds a little like Fisherman’s Blues, Part Two.
“I wrote the song in 1986 and over the years - although it’s hardly ever been performed live - I often worked on it in the privacy my own home, refining the lyrics or changing the arrangement,” Scott recounts. “And finally it came up for air with this album.”
But this is not to suggest Scott has lost his touch for creating brand new tunes in a rush of inspiration.
“The album we made, Rock in a Weary Land, came out in 2001, they (the songs) were all written in one burst,” Scott recalls. “I have another album ready to go; ready to record. And they’re all in one burst, as well. So it happens both ways.” This next album will be a particularly special one, even by The Waterboys’ high standards, as it matches a poetic songwriter [Scott] with a famous poet. “It’s a collection of poems by W.B. Yeats, the great Irish poet that I’ve set to music,” Scott explains. “I’ve done most of the arrangements. I’m just waiting to record it. I might record it next year. I just like his poems, and they fit being turned into songs.”
Scott has recorded multiple albums as The Waterboys, as well as a few solo albums. But at this juncture in his career, he’s settled on recording only as a Waterboy. He’s gotten the solo urge -- it seems -- out of his blood for good.
“I actually prefer working under the name The Waterboys,” Scott says. “It’s much more fun for me. I didn’t really enjoy being a solo artist. It was a novelty at first when I did a one man show for a couple of years. And I had an album, which I played all the instruments on - a one man album that was called Bring ‘Em All In. But I didn’t enjoy working under my own name when I had a band backing me. If I have a band, it should be The Waterboys.”
Scott’s love of playing with a band even carried over to the way Book of Lightning was tracked. He chose Island Studios because it was roomy enough for The Waterboys to all perform together.
“Too many studios these days are too small,” Scott complains. “They have huge control rooms that you can get all your keyboards and your samplers in, but they’ve got really small playing rooms. So I tried to find a studio that was big enough and had enough booths so that we could have lead vocals without the drums getting in the vocal microphones, and so on. And we found one. (But) there aren’t very many left in London.” This chosen studio has a whole lot of history, too. “In the ‘70s it was Island Studios, and in the ‘80s it became Sarm West. Bob Marley records from the mid-to-late ’70s were recorded there, as were a lot of very old records from the Island label. King Crimson records were done there. Led Zeppelin albums -- although I was never a great Led Zeppelin fan -- were made there.”
This grand studio recording experience is not matched by a grandiose album title, however. “There is little significance to the title,” Scott confesses. “It’s a phrase that I like that I had up my sleeve for some time. And I’ve almost used it a couple times in the past. And I felt it suited this album. But there’s no greater purpose to it than that.”
That means Book of Lightning can likely mean whatever you want it to mean, no matter how it happens to strike you.
--Dan MacIntosh
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The Waterboys’ Book of Lightning is available now on Decca Records
http://www.mikescottwaterboys.com
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