Song 43: American Trilogy

American Trilogy - The Delgados

This is, before we start, not the same American Trilogy made famous by Elvis - I've never known why this song is called American Trilogy, but having just looked it up, it was apparently a working title because one of the band thought the melody was a little like the Elvis song - so there we go.

I do know why The Delgados are called The Delgados, and that's much more fun. They're named after 1990 Tour de France winner Pedro Delgado. One can tell from the fact that their first two albums were called 'Domestiques' and 'Peloton' that they were cycling fans.

I remember Pedro Delgado - he was a main rival to Stephen Roche and he helped disabuse me of the notion that schoolteachers were thorough or knew everything, as I remember doing a project on France and saying Pedro Delgado was one of France's greatest sportsmen, only to realise to my horror that Delgado was Spanish. I thought I'd get in mega trouble, but no approbation was forthcoming. Phonies.

Anyway, Delgado won the Tour in 1990, thanks largely to his domestique Miguel Indurain, who was way better and went on to win the next five Tours himself, and is one of only three Tour winners of the last 20 years to have no official drug taint on him - I always viewed Mig as a superman but I'm not so hypocritical as to be surprised if taint should come his way.

Anyway, I'm rambling, so back to Scottish pop. The Delgados split up in 2005 when their bass player Stewart Henderson left the band saying he found it difficult "to pour so much energy and time into something that never quite seemed to get the attention or respect he felt it deserved". Which just about sums the Delgados up. Because they were a brilliant band who did not get their just desserts but, realistically, were never going to.

For me, their high watermark was the album from which the song comes, 'The Great Eastern' and its even better follow up 'Hate'. Others might disagree, but this was when they came closest to universal acclaim and even a bit of commercial success. 'American Trilogy' is one of many beautiful, catchy songs across those two albums. However, one of the issues which prevented the band "making it" is highlighted by a the song titles of a couple of the prettier songs on the album 'Hate', namely 'Child Killers' and 'All You Need Is Hate' - the world is a strange place. In an alternative universe, 'All You Need is Hate' a catchier, cleverer, finer song than 'All You Need is Love' is one of the defining songs in the western world. Perhaps its best that this alternative universe doesn't exist.

I experienced first hand another big issue in the band's failure to ascend to the highest heights, when I went with Michael Brown in about 2002 to watch them play a seated show at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. Now, it was an enjoyable show, and a seated show in a West London theatre is hardly a fair test of a band's rock star credentials, but the Delgados were, that night, four of the most unassuming, unglamorous rock-starish people I've ever seen on stage.

Some indie bands like say Elbow or Snow Patrol (bear with me and don't be too sneering) are good enough to get to the point where the big time is within their grasp - they get the award nominations and the radio play, they get the whisper, and then it's not down to the music, it's down to the ambition, the x-factor, the whatever. Both the above bands grabbed their moment when it came to them - The Delgados wouldn't have had a cat in hell's chance.

Perhaps you haven't had time to listen to them and you want an idea of what they sound like - well, there are two sides to it - on the one hand, they were a classic scottish indie band, on the other, The Great Eastern and Hate were produced by Dave Fridmann, the American genius who has produced an awful lot of the great albums of the last 20 years - Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips being his most regular clients, though he's still right at the forefront with one of the albums of last year, by Tame Impala.

His sound is orchestral and symphonic yet dreamy and tripped out - on those two albums he definitely took the Delgados to the next level. I first heard American Trilogy on Radio 1, in the daytime. They weren't THAT obscure. It could have been a pop hit.  It's first line (indeed the whole lyric) is one of the most striking I've ever heard.

"I became accustomed to a kind of social servitude meaning no one, I mean no one, could accept what I had become - selfish, bitter, weak, enough to make you sick and lately I've been feeling there are bits of life i'm stealing. Get me home"

And it doesn't actually cheer up after that ...

It's a beautiful, widescreen soulful song, but the Delgados lyrics are constantly littered with real darkness, cynicism and misanthropy. Take the second single from 'The Great Eastern' the equally catchy 'No Danger' (this is an edited single version), which has lyrics like "by the marks upon their arm there was nothing that they lacked in charm" and "come on, babies, find a vein" and the aforementioned 'Child Killers' which says "How can i find what's right, the truth is our lives were shite, what's the point to you? Come down, down, down, we have the only gak in town". It's as far from the glamourisation of drugs as it's possible to get.

Scotland has, particularly, in the last 20 years, punched far far above its weight in musical terms, but i sometimes think you have to be in Scotland to appreciate that, as I do think the national music press is very London-centric. The Delgados are part of a long line of magnificent Scottish pop bands.

They have also been responsible for fostering a great deal of that great music, as they started their own label Chemikal Underground (which they continue to run) - Mogwai, Arab Strap, Malcolm Middleton, The Phantom Band just a few of their bands. So perhaps that's the key to the Delgados unfortunately calling it a day as band - they actually knew and understood the music business - they knew that, brilliant though their music was, it cost too much for too little reward to go om as a band.

I don't think I've expressed thus far just how much I personally love the song 'American Trilogy' - how much it is, sonically, structurally, lyrically and melodically almost the perfect song for me. So thank goodness for the world we live in, that somehow or other, the Delgados' music will survive. Because if we lived in ancient times, it would not be deemed important enough, it would not have figured significantly enough in our culture and would be quickly forgotten. But it's an awful lot better than that.