Usually, these ‘Something for the Weekend’ posts are a celebration of great music but today’s offering is tinged with something that struck me as a sad irony.
Out of all Prefab Sprout’s songs, I’ve chosen The Sound of Crying because of a couple of lines in the song. Released in 1992, the song incudes an imaginary conversation with God and in one verse, the great Paddy McAloon sings “Well who am I to tell you how to run your business, Man, you could strike me blind”.
Sadly, in recent years McAloon has suffered from ill health – an uncurable disease that affects his balance and has caused him to withdraw from public life, together with detached retinas, which are causing his eyesight to fail.
It’s good to know he’s maintaining a sense of humour, though – apparently, he describes himself as ‘Mr Health Disaster’.
Please enjoy this great Prefab Sprout song and let’s send Paddy our best wishes.
I love prefab sprout and such a great song you shared.
I bought the first few albums then for some reason never followed them but still play the Steve McQueen album yearly.
Paddy always seemed annoyed at not getting recognised for his songwriting & albums against what was around them at the time and maybe he was right.
I didn’t know about his health issues. Weird I was always looking for gigs from them so that makes sense now and what a life changing disease it's sad.
Anyway, you made me play them yesterday so the power on the internet wins again.
Mr Health Disaster lol