“You’re too simple minded”
Waiting so long, I’ve been waiting so long…
Possibly taking their lead from fellow New Romantics, Duran Duran, who had their own tribute album, ‘Thank You’, (complete with a cover of ‘Diamond Dogs’) Simple Minds, are to release ‘Neon Lights’ on September 24th. The ten track album includes versions of songs by the likes of The Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, Kraftwerk and David Bowie.
Here’s a bit about the Bowie cover from a track by track synopsis of the album:
“David Bowie’s influences cast a long shadow over many bands. It so happens that even the name Simple Minds comes from a Bowie song (The Jean Genie). Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill first came across Bowie around 1972. His charisma, his songs and the atmosphere of the show were what inspired Simple Minds to write songs of their own, so it goes without saying that the bands version of The Man Who Sold The World stays pretty close to the original.”
Singer, Jim Kerr, had this to say about the project:
“…We tried to hone it down to the key acts involved, and you could say that Simple Minds came out on a basis of listening to David Bowie, Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel and of course, Lou Reed…In this collection we have tried to stay faithful to the sentiment of the original songs…real fans of Simple Minds who want to hear what we were listening to as fans and understand the excitement that propelled us to make our sound and write our own songs, can trace it all on this album.”
This won’t be the first time that Simple Minds can be connected to David Bowie on record. In 1980 Jim Kerr and Derek Forbes of the band joined David at Rockfield studios in Wales to add backing vocals to the Bowie/Pop penned ‘Play It Safe’ for Iggy’s ‘Soldier’ album. Coincidentally, the song included the lyric: “Today I saw a very very thing, But that’s another song, You’re too simple minded, Let’s play it safe.” Spooky eh?