What sadness attends this final post in the series! But The Cutter by Echo & The Bunnymen almost makes me want to start a sub-genre: songs I'd love to sing on a karaoke night. (Just for the record, I've never been to one....)
There are lots of reasons I'm including this here. The sheer energy of the playing; grand, but not grandiose. The singing that just about stays this side of histrionic, pummeling the emotions out of their shell. And the intriguing lyrics: will I still be soiled when the dirt is off? Hmm.
They had a great run of singles in the mid 80s - I first sat up and took notice with the charting of The Back Of Love and fell head over heels in love with The Killing Moon (which would be a worthy substitute for The Cutter - check out the All Night version here; more memories of confined evenings in a Doncaster bedsit in '84, with Kid Jensen on the evening Radio 1 slot). And Never Stop was an unusually-affecting song, falling between the Porcupine and Ocean Rain albums.
Sure, they were overblown and maybe took themselves too seriously but they were young and so were we. Who isn't guilty?
One final reason for choosing this one: the memory of the song playing on the jukebox in the Cov Poly Student Union bar one night and a couple looking into each other's eyes and singing, 'Not just another drop in the ocean'.
I've often wondered whether they went the distance.
