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The Bluebells’ Sisters reissue – reviewed

David Quantick on the 1984 album

By david quantick

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The Bluebells / Sisters 3CD+DVD box set reissue

The evolution of “indie” from punk and post-punk was slow but unstoppable. It arrived partly as a response to punk’s in-your-face machismo – all that shouting and spitting. Punk guitars was aggressive, indie guitars were spindly. Punk was influenced by the Ramones, indie by early Talking Heads. Punks didn’t sing about love, unless it was sneery and enraged: indie was all about love, especially if it was unrequited. Indie was, in Beano terms, more Walter the Softie than Dennis the Menace: and it resembled the Beano in another way too – it was very Scottish.

Scottish indie was often art school, it was often twee, it favoured big Gretsch guitars, floppy fringes and – in both senses of the phrase – big girl’s blouses. Bands as undiverse as Orange Juice and the Pastels brought a new sound that owed nothing to The Clash and The Stranglers and everything to The Byrds and Buzzcocks. The aggressively dry wit of Glasgow informed new labels like Postcard, whose logo was not a safety pin or two fingers stuck in the air, but a Louis Wain cat playing a drum, and who introduced the world to Aztec Camera and Josef K as well as Orange Juice.

Glasgow in the early 80s was a fantastic place to be if you wanted different sounds: new bands, each one playing big guitars and dressed like Roger McGuinn, were appearing all the time. They wrote jangly songs full of unrequited love and arch lyrics: in a few years’ time, this sort of thing would become codified and stultified with the C86 sound, but for now it was new and thrilling.

Glasgow in the early 80s was a fantastic place to be if you wanted different sounds:

And, ironically, one of the bands of the era who encapsulated everything good about the new wave of indie completely swerved the whole indie thing by signing to a major label. They were – you’ve guessed – the Bluebells and their decision to sign with London Records (Sire in the US) rather than someone more local made them into an instantly more commercial proposition. Not that they lost their original spirit – early singles like the anthemic ‘Cath’ and the countryish ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’ would have fitted in well at the indie disco alongside the Orange Juice and Aztec Camera singles, but songs like the gorgeous ‘I’m Falling’ with its aching, epic coda and the career-defining ‘Young At Heart’ (a Volkswagen ad, as well as a co-write with Bananarama, fact fans) benefited greatly from radio-friendly productions (just as Orange Juice and Aztec Camera also did).

The Bluebells / Sisters 3CD+DVD box set reissue
The 3CD+DVD deluxe edition of Sisters

The Bluebells were pop, with an edge. They were blessed with a superb song-writer – Robert Hodgens, aka Bobby Bluebell – and the vocal brilliance of Ken McCluskey, whose brother David was the band’s drummer. Their singles were great but so – always a good sign – were the B-sides, from the wistful ‘Aim In Life’ (about, prosaically, an old woman known to the band as Eggy Beard) to their fantastic cover of Dominic Behan’s ‘The Patriot Game’ (a cover which annoyed Shane MacGowan greatly, as he had earmarked it for his new band Pogue Mahone).

The band’s debut album, Sisters, was released in 1984 and deserved to be a massive hit. It was however a bit of a hotchpotch, being a collection of previously-released singles and b-sides mixed in with new material and produced by a variety of people (most famously Elvis Costello). The result was more like a retrospective collection than a new album as Sisters veered from the joyful jangle of ‘Cath’ to the Junior’s Farm-ish pop rock of ‘South Atlantic Way’ (an anti-Falklands War protest song). At times Sisters sounds like early MTV pop – the gorgeous ‘H.O.L.L.A.N.D.’, the storming ‘Red Guitars’ – and at time it sounds like highlights of a John Peel session – ‘Will She Always Be Waiting’, ‘Some Sweet Day’. Sisters is a curate’s egg except parts of it are excellent and all of it is good: it just hangs together oddly, like a pair of trousers that doesn’t know if it’s meant to be leather or tartan. This musical schizophrenia was reflected in the album’s reception: Sisters reached number 22 in the album charts, while the NME voted it 50th best album of the year. Two stools, then, fallen neatly between.)

And that, in pop terms, should have been that. The band split up Hodgens went off to write for other people, the McCluskeys formed a folk duo, and all their bass players joined other bands. But then in 1993, the band gave permission for ‘Young At Heart’ to be used in a car ad, the fresh exposure sent it to number one, and the Bluebells reformed to promote it. Anyone who saw the Bluebells’ chaotic, hilarious performance on Top of The Pops when the song made it to the top cannot fail to be entertained: sometimes good things happen to good bands.

Since then the Bluebells have recorded intermittently: in 2025 they were booked for Glastonbury. And Sisters is back, getting the treatment it deserves. This new edition comes as a double LP on black or limited-edition purple vinyl, and as a 3CD+DVD box set (there’s also a special ‘Seeds’ edition of 100 copies which comes with a packet of – what else? – bluebell seeds). The CDs include songs from a 1981 Kid Jensen Session and a live show at London’s Camden Palace in 1985, and the DVD has the usual videos and TV appearances. It’s all a long way from those indie days but also – in a very real way – it isn’t. This is an essential purchase for anyone who loves smart, wistful pop and great songs.

Review by David Quantick. The Sisters reissue is out now.

Tracklisting

The Bluebells / Sisters 3CD+DVD box set reissue

Sisters The Bluebells /

    • CD 1: The Album, Plus Bonus Tracks
      1. Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool (Alternative Version)
      2. Young At Heart
      3. I’m Falling
      4. Will She Always Be Waiting
      5. Some Sweet Day
      6. Cath (Longer Version)
      7. H.O.L.L.A.N.D.
      8. Red Guitars
      9. Syracuse University
      10. Learn To Love
      11. The Patriot Game
      12. South Atlantic Way (Full)
      13. Aim In Life
      14. Forevermore (7” Version)
      15. Sugar Bridge (7” Version)
      16. All I Am (Is Loving You) (12” Version)
      17. The Ballad Of Joe Hill
      18. Forever Yours, Forever Mine (Dub Version)
      19. Cath (US Remix)
    • CD 2: B-Sides And Single Mixes
      1. Forevermore
      2. Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool (Original Album Version)
      3. Cath (12” Version)
      4. All I Ever Said
      5. Fall From Grace
      6. Sugar Bridge (Extended Version)
      7. Happy Birthday (Turn Gold)
      8. I’m Falling (US Edit)
      9. Young At Heart (Extended Version)
      10. Tender Mercy
      11. Wishful Thinking (Will She Always Be Waiting)
      12. Smalltown Martyr
      13. All I Am (Is Loving You) (7” Version)
      14. Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool (Original April ‘82 Version)
      15. Happy Birthday (Turn Gold) (Alternate Version)
      16. All I Am (Is Loving You) (Robert’s Edit)
      17. Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool (No Strings Version)
      18. Young At Heart (Club Remix)
    • CD 3:
      1. Goodbye And Good Luck (Kid Jensen Session, 1981)
      2. Happy Birthday (Kid Jensen Session, 1981)
      3. Oh Dear (Kid Jensen Session, 1981)
      4. You’re Gonna Miss Me (Kid Jensen Session, 1981)
      5. Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool (Kid Jensen Session, 1982)
      6. Some Sweet Day (Kid Jensen Session, 1982)
      7. Sugar Bridge (Kid Jensen Session, 1982)
      8. Wishful Thinking (Kid Jensen Session, 1982)
      9. Learn To Love (Kid Jensen Session, 1983)
      10. Red Guitars (Kid Jensen Session, 1983)
      11. Smalltown Martyr To Love (Kid Jensen Session, 1983)
      12. Young At Heart (Kid Jensen Session, 1983)
      13. Sugar Bridge (Early Version, 1982)
      14. East Green (Early Version, 1981)
      15. Lifeboat (Live At Camden Palace, 1985)
      16. Honest John (Live At Camden Palace, 1985)
      17. Forevermore (Early Version, 1981)
      18. Cath (Live At Camden Palace, 1985)
      19. I’m Falling (Live At Camden Palace, 1985)
      20. All I Am (Is Loving You) (Live At Camden Palace, 1985)
      21. Sugar Bridge (Live At Camden Palace, 1985)
      22. Young At Heart (Live At Camden Palace, 1985)
    • DVD: Promotional Videos And BBC TV Appearances
      Music Videos
      1. Cath
      2. I’m Falling
      3. Young At Heart
      4. Cath (Remix)
      5. All I Am (Is Loving You)
      The Old Grey Whistle Test
      1. Forevermore
      2. Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool
      3. Red Guitars
      Top Of The Pops
      1. I’m Falling
      2. Young At Heart

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