SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S TEAR

Market Square Heroes/Three Boats/Grendel whetted my teenage appetite. My local stores did not have Script and I first saw it (and bought it) on a day trip to Bath while on school hockey tour to Cheltenham/Monkton Coomb/Dean's Close. Ten days of waiting to play it were rewarded as a bunch of spotty mates called round to listen to the latest offereing from the Scottish wordsmithand the English band.

We heard a melancholic album, introspective, emotional and dramatic. This was an album that has resonated for me: a few years after its release I was attending Garden Parties by still (heavily polluted) Cam waters while studying at Cambridge: at home during vacation I listed to the band playing Forgotten Sons at Maysfield Leisure Centre a few weeks after a family friend was murdered by the IRA. This was not, and is not, a detatched musical piece. It confronted real contemporary political issues. No punches pulled. It satirised the elite. (always an easy target). Maybe this is lsot on the present generation. Forgotten Sons stands the test of time. SLF wrote many but they were from Ulster and saturated in the political ethos.

it's definitely in my prog desert island discs let alone a 5 star.