Day After Day #68: The Whole of the Moon

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

The Whole of the Moon (1985)

I hadn't even had a chance to think about what I was going to write about today when I heard the horrible news that Karl Wallinger had died. Having written about one of his masterful World Party songs in January, the logical next move was to write about the epic Waterboys song "The Whole of the Moon," which Wallinger played on. 

The Waterboys were formed in London in 1983 by Scottish musician Mike Scott, with a self-titled debut filled with sweeping anthemic songs released that July. Early influences included David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Patti Smith. Wallinger joined the band on keyboards in time for their first public performance on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test. The album got good notices, as did the 1984 release A Pagan Place. The band's sound was being called The Big Music, which was also the name of the first single on A Pagan Place, referring to the wall of sound Scott would build with a variety of instruments. 

Released in September 1985, This Is the Sea was the third Waterboys album and the last of their Big Music rock albums. It was also the last Waterboys album featuring Wallinger, who would leave to form World Party. The album features the greatest Waterboys song (and there are many great ones), "The Whole of the Moon." 

In the song Scott pays tribute to an inspirational figure, although he's claimed in interviews it's not about a specific person. There was speculation it was about Prince or British musician Nikki Sudden (who had collaborated with Scott previously), but Scott has denied that, saying it's about a composite of many people including writer C.S. Lewis. 

"I pictured a rainbow/You held it in your hands/I had flashes/But you saw the pan/I wandered out in the world for years/While you stayed in your room/I saw the crescent/You saw the whole of the moon."

The band's kitchen sink instrumental approach is in full effect on "The Whole of the Moon," including classical-sounding trumpets, a saxophone solo, and synths and synth bass from Wallinger. Scott said he wanted synth lines echoing ones used by Prince on the songs "1999" and "Paisley Park." And Wallinger's backing vocals at one point were meant to echo Bowie's "Fame." 

"With a torch in your pocket/And the wind at your heels/You climbed the ladder/And you know how it feels/To get too high/Too far too soon/You saw the whole of the moon/The whole of the moon."

When it was first released, the song reached #26 on the UK Singles Chart, while getting frequent FM radio and MTV play in the U.S. But when it was re-released as part of a best-of compilation in 1991, it became a hit, going all the way to #3 in the UK; it even received an Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" in 1991. In recent years, it's been covered by the likes of Frightened Rabbit and Fiona Apple.

Despite (or maybe because of) the success of This Is the Sea, Scott took the band in another musical direction, exploring roots music: first American, then Irish. This led to 1988's Fisherman's Blues, which became the Waterboys' best-selling album, hitting #13 in the UK and #76 on the Billboard 200. The band released two more albums (including the rougher-edged Dream Harder) before splitting up the Waterboys. He played as a solo artist for the rest of the '90 before reforming the band in 2000. The band has had more than 70 members over the years, but Scott remained the only constant in the Waterboys, releasing nine albums from 2000-2022.

Day After Day #12: All Come True

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

All Come True

Kids, let me take you back to the summer of 1987. I was 19 at the time, having just finished my sophomore year at UNH, and was gearing up for a summer of working to save up money for the fall. I had spent my first two years in a dorm room but was going to move off campus into an apartment with three of my friends in the fall, so I needed to make as much money as I could. 

My parents were basically covering my tuition and rent (hey, I went to an in-state school and saved them a lot of money, so I didn't feel too bad about it), but I needed to cover my daily expenses (aka food and beer). I was coming home once a month during the school year and working overnights stocking shelves at Market Basket and I was going to do that all summer, but I wanted to find something that paid a little more. Turns out a guy who went to our church owned a company that installed wooden swing sets and they were looking for college kids to work for the summer and they were paying more than what I would make at the Bucket (our affectionate nickname for Market Basket), so I jumped at it. How hard could it be, right?

After a week of orientation, I was sent out on the road with one of the older guys to go set up these huge ass swing sets, all big wooden beams and such. Now I was never the handyman type (still not!), but I can put stuff together if you show me how. We would load up the van with the materials and drive to the customer's home to set it up. The company was based in Haverhill, so we were usually in the greater Boston/southern NH area, but sometimes we'd go as far as Cape Cod, which would mean we'd have to sit in Boston traffic on the way back. After a week working with someone else, they started sending me out on my own. I was just a scrawny little puke, so putting that stuff together by myself in the hot summer sun was definitely an ordeal. The days were long; I was working about 50 hours a week and then another 20 or so on the weekend at Market Basket. I noticed that the other college kids hired with me quit after a week or so. I lasted a month before I bailed and just worked at the Bucket during the week. 

The only saving grace during those days was listening to the radio in the van, mostly WBCN or WFNX. There was plenty of schlocky stuff like Motley Crue or Whitesnake, but there was also a lot of cool music coming out: U2 was dominant that year, but I was discovering new music from bands like the Replacements, Husker Du, the Psychedelic Furs, Midnight Oil, the Cure. 

Another was World Party, essentially the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Karl Wallinger, who previously had been a member of the Waterboys. World Party's debut album, Private Revolution, came out in March 1987 and featured a then-unknown Sinead O'Connor on backing vocals on a couple of songs, including the title track and first single. I liked it, but "Ship of Fools" really caught my attention and became a top 40 hit, reaching #27 in the U.S. During those long days in the van, I would hear that song but also "All Come True," the third single. It was a little more downbeat than the previous singles: moody, atmospheric, filled with longing. I would hear it while sitting on I-93 North in bumper-to-bumper traffic, wishing I was anywhere but there. I thought of my friends who were probably partying on a beach somewhere and felt serious jealously, even though more likely, they were just working shitty jobs like I was. The rest of the summer was less stressful, working four or five days a week but also going to concerts and whiling away the hours until I could get back to school for my junior year. The following summer, I did a newspaper internship and the summer after that, I was in the workforce, so this was my last summer as a carefree student.

Not sure why I never bought Private Revolution, but a few years later, I was all over World Party's second album Goodbye Jumbo. Right from the first single, "Way Down Now" with its Stonesy "woo woos" and cool slide guitar intro, I was hooked. Wallinger was able to create timeless music that both sounded like its influences (Stones, Beatles, Dylan, Prince) and was fresh. 

Wallinger released three more albums as World Party before suffering an aneurysm in 2001 that left him unable to speak. He began playing live dates again in 2006 and toured sporadically in the following decade, but he hasn't toured or released anything new since 2015. I admit to not checking out the last three WP albums so I'll get on that, but I'll always think of that summer of '87 when I hear "All Come True."