The Wild Swans - Press - No Ripcord

Sessions for Kid Jensen and John Peel validate any rumour you might have heard about this band. The Iron Bed is an anthem of bedsit land, trying to romanticise watching the frost on the inside of your window, yet the chorus line "Another wonderful moment..." is sung in such a way that we know he's struggling to believe his own words. No Bleeding, with it's opening lyrics of "Black clouds approaching, once my mettle held fast/now my courage is melting, with the ice in my glass", is described by Simpson in the impressive sleeve notes as the Wild Swans finest moment. He's right. For reasons no one quite seems to know, they split. Guitarist Jeremy Kelly would enjoy the greatest initial success, forming the Lotus Eaters whose The First Picture Of You was a top 10 hit, while Simpson formed Care with Ian Broudie (then perhaps best known for production work with the Bunnymen). Several Care singles, including the superb Flaming Sword, were released before that project to fell through. Broudie, of course, would go on to become the Lightning Seeds, Simpson co-writing God Help Them on 1989's Cloudcukooland. Can we expect any retrospectives of his time in Care? "'My time in Care' - sounds like padded rooms and sedatives which is about right. I'd love to see a Care retrospective as I have tons of fabulous unreleased Care tapes at home but Ian Broudie and I fell out 15 years ago so don't hold your breath." Luckily, after Care and the Lotus Eaters had split and with interest revived after a release of the Peel Sessions in 1985, the Wild Swans reformed and recorded a few songs for the Janice Long show. Showing a new cleaned up sound/lyrical slant, both Northern England and Now and Forever chronicled a Liverpool fucked over by the decade as well as allowing Kelly to show off his guitar chops. Signing to Sire soon after, things went wrong when they should have gone right. Ged Quinn departed, and major label life wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "Everything changed after we signed the deal with Sire," explains Simpson. "Overnight we completely lost touch with reality.