Doves – Sea Song

8th October 2024 · 1990s, 1999, Music

Here’s a funny thing: when I half-heard this on the radio the other day my mind told me I was listening to Tim Buckley. I think it’s the emotional pull of the music and the sorrowful sound of its melancholy melody that did it.

But it’s not Tim Buckley, it’s Manchester trio Doves from a quarter of a century later. And here’s another funny thing – I never realised the indie band Doves were the same people as acid house ravers Sub Sub.

This is one of their first tunes after switching from dance beats to guitars when their Ancoats studio burned down on the Williams twins’ birthday in February 1996.

Sea Son, a reworking of an early demo called Down To The Sea, was released on their 1999 Sea EP and again a year later on the B-side of the single Cath The Sun, before finding a home on their Mercury-nominated debut album Lost Souls.

The speech samples come from Wim Wenders’ magnificent film Paris, Texas, and the video is dedicated to Rob Gretton, the former manager of Joy Division and New Order, who funded early Doves recordings and died a few days before this was released.

The three members of Doves – twins Jez and Andy Williams and Jimi Goodwin – had met at secondary school in Manchester when they were 15 and formed their first band, Sub Sub, after meeting again at the Hacidenda.

They had a No.3 hit single with Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) in 1993 but abandoned their dance style after the fire three years later and embraced a new sound influenced not by disco and acid house but by the Velvets and the Smiths, riding the same wave that brought Oasis and The Verve to fame.

But I have to say they didn’t really cross my path until later, with their second album The Last Broadcast and hit single There Goes The Fear.