Richard Curtis: The Proclaimers Are the Soundtrack to My Life

(via The Observer)

At every age, the Love Actually director has been accompanied by the wise, tender, joyful songs of Scots sibling duo Craig and Charlie Reid

My guess is that a lot of people have a fairly simple version of the Proclaimers in their minds. Twins, big glasses, belting out (I’m Gonna Be) 500 Miles in the 1980s. But that’s like thinking the Beatles are just those four nice young men with fringes singing: “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Or that all Olivia Colman has done is play the girlfriend in Peep Show. Or that Andy Burnham is our fresh-faced new health secretary.

I’d love to convince you to put aside 45 minutes and catch up on one of the truly great bands of our time. Who never went away. Because for the past 39 years, the Proclaimers have powered on magnificently: 13 albums of cracking songs and countless tours of crackling intensity. If you stopped communicating with the Reid brothers after 1987’s Letter from America, you’ve got a lot of exciting catching up to do.

On stage live – they’re touring now – they remain vocally ferocious, incredibly efficient and not especially friendly, whipping through 25 short songs like a proper punk act. There is no doubt that there is a special alchemy when family members sing together: the Everlys, Haim, the Bee Gees, the Beach Boys, the McGarrigle sisters, the Roches. Craig and Charlie Reid are living proof of that magic. In every song, you just wait for the voices to start to blend; for those extra gears and harmonies as they ramp up the raw volume…

Every Moment Has A Song