Read @ Joe’s

Title: Themes for Great Cities: A New History of Simple Minds (2023) Author: Graeme Thomson Publisher: Constable Book jacket: An illuminating new biography of one of Britain’s biggest and most influential bands, written with the full input and cooperation of Simple Minds, shedding new light on their dazzling art-rock legacy. Joe says: An essential read for any serious Simple Minds fan.

Themes for Great Cities tells the inside story of a Scottish art school band who never went to art school and instead became a sensation. A band who crossed over the grayed-out boundaries between prog and pop; anthem rock and dancehall jams. A band who never set out to stake a true claim but discovered international favor from Glasgow to Sydney to Philadelphia. A band that might have sung about life in a day but continues to be alive and kicking. A band that dares us to don’t forget about. Themes for Great Cities is progression that builds from intro to verse but takes it to the bridge too soon… and before Real Life. 

Graeme Thomson is a musical journalist and author with the chops to back his CV. Thomson does much more than simply transcribe interviews or basely parrot Wikipedia. He gets in with the band. He explores their history, the band’s thoughts and attitudes, and their relevance both contemporaneously as well as true back-in-the-day authenticity. Thomson also throws on a flurry of clashing expressions that at first seems rudely jarring but eventually settles into a unique musical cadence of his own. 

Simple Minds emerged from Glasgow’s post-punk scene in the dying scream of the 70s and jumped into the Euro-pop craze of the fabulous 80s with a tight dance pulse that erupted into arena-filing anthems. Thomson touches on it all. Perhaps even too deeply. And by slowly focusing on the “life before” – particularly that of lead singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill – the get-to-the-good-part of their story, specifically their Live Aid performance aided and abetted by a certain movie soundtrack hit, then rushes by in what seems like, well, thirty frames a second.

Themes for Great Cities is not sugary and gilded. Nor does it possess tabloid-tell-alls of addiction and recovery. Thomson instead focuses on music making craft. The sweat and inspiration of trying to make it, the anxiety of thinking you’ve made it, and then the management in avoiding a creative plateau. He swims between narrative tales and quotes and manifests the band into recollecting a specific session in October 1980 or the exhaustion felt in the winter of 1983. Thomson, like Simple Minds on all occasions, succeeds. And flourishes. 

Themes for Great Cities is the perfect art-style book that merrily sings and flows; it allows Kerr and Burchill necessary pauses only to then accelerate over gaps. And this all about illuminating a band that cannot be fully pushed into a single genre. Thomson can be as elusive as Kerr’s lyrics and as driving as a Burchill solo. An essential read for any serious Simple Minds fan. And, admittedly, one that could have easily gone deeper into their discography as no one wants the song to end.