In the final MMM before Christmas I didn’t really know what song I was going to choose. So much so that I started to look through the list of commercially released songs on Dream Giver Redux for some inspiration, and what I thought about doing initially was finding a song from more recent years to prevent myself showing my continued bias towards the “golden period” of Simple Minds output. And then I spotted In Every Heaven!
To me it conjures up a feeling that is indicative of the season. It’s a beautiful, uplifting track. Reading the lyrics on the screen and listening to the song playing in my head it just filled me with a sense of hope for the year to come. That first line in the chorus – “In every heaven, there’s a chance that I take,” beautiful! In fact, the whole chorus is. The whole song is! For a young man who seems in lots of other ways quite the selfish git, Jim Kerr can’t half pull off beautiful, collective, inclusive lyrics. It’s all that “mercurial” stuff about him that I love. The complete contradiction that he is.
There’s just a real loving aspect of togetherness about those lyrics. The line I find most perplexing is the “kissing yourself goodbye” line. I’d love to ask him about that. But…those days are long gone. And in all honesty he’d either tell me they were just throw away and he didn’t give them much thought at all – or, perhaps just for Christmas – he might have weaved another New Gold Dream story for me – but I doubt it. As I say, days of interaction with him have long passed (and yes, at times I am still very mournful about that – because those interactions made part of being in the Simple Minds fandom so very, very special).
No time for tears! Only joy. I don’t want the song to make me cry because it’s beauty is in how uplifting it is. And … it feels very apt for Christmas. I’m in no way religious and I have never celebrated Christmas as a Christian holiday, celebrating the birth of Jesus – but with most things New Gold Dream, there’s an ecclesiastical element to it – some theological mysticism present. With a title like “In Every Heaven”, the song is most overt in this association.
I love the words of this song. I really love them. They are like a modern day hymn, almost. I don’t know. I just find it a beautiful thing. The musicality of it is gorgeous. Mick MacNeil’s keys are like a little organ recital piece. Charlie’s guitar pieces are short and sharp but not jarring. Derek’s bass work is always just masterful during this period – full stop! And that fantastic off-kilter beat from Mike Ogletree. Dear lord, how I have underestimated this man’s sumptuous drumming through these years. I know Jim would wax lyrical about Mel and loved his brash bombast and it probably what was needed for Simple Minds to propel forward, but these days I can’t help but wonder how things might have played out had they felt able to stick with Mike. There is such beauty in his playing.
Finally, there’s Jim and his voice is soft and dreamy on this track. It’s a serenade. Tender just where he needs to be. Beautiful! Just beautiful! I absolutely swoon over him on this vocal performance.
I put the lyrics below because…well, just read them…
Heavenly calls,
Calling us up,
Kissing yourself goodbye.
7am in heaven above,
Still kissing yourself goodbye.
Messenger calls,
Calling us up,
Stand over by my side.
Finding myself believing in you,
Get over by my side.
In every heaven,
There’s a chance that I take.
In every heaven,
Dreams can awake.
Ohh, in every heaven.
Till morning lights stay.
Ahh, in every heaven,
Coming my way.
Cinema show,
Easter and snow,
Kissing yourself goodbye.
Heat wave and haze,
In dollars it rains.
Kissing yourself goodbye.
Radio plays,
Static of love,
Stand over by my side.
Heaven it bumps,
Heaven it grinds,
Get over by my side.
In every heaven,
There’s a chance that I take.
In every heaven,
Dreams can awake.
In every heaven,
Till morning lights stay.
Ahh, in every heaven,
Coming my way.
Also my very early days basic piece of art I did for it reminds me of home and time with mum. The background is a photo I took from the street I grew up in. That massive satellite dish was in a garden of a neighbour of mum’s. I had the plan to do the art piece when I saw the dish thinking it would work with the “radio plays static of love” line because it looks more like one of those radio telescope dishes they use at observatories to listen out into the galaxy for alien life. I know! Hark at me, eh?
And I love that photo of Jim on the cover of NME. I love that pose. I have many photos of him in that pose, with his hands cradled around the back of his neck. It’s a great pose.
Ultimately, I think In Every Heaven is as near to a Christmas song (even though the words name check Easter) as Simple Minds ever got and that’s okay with me. I was only saying to a friend a few days ago that I am thankful Jim seemingly had a kind of “over my dead body!” attitude towards SM ever doing a Christmas song. Lol
Merry – Minds Music Monday – Christmas!
