Falling And Laughing is one of my all time favourite songs (it’s the guitar rift that always gets me). Released in 1980, it was the debut single by the band, Orange Juice…
Two years later, in 1982, Falling And Laughing appeared on Orange Juice’s debut album, You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, which got to number 21 in the UK charts. The Falling And Laughing on the album is a slightly re-worked version. I much prefer the debut single, which I’ve shown above, because it’s harder and tighter and more raw.
It all started when Edwyn Collins formed a band called the Nu-Sonics in Glasgow in 1976, which in 1979 became Orange Juice. Collins was the lead singer and main lyricist. Orange Juice were a very poppy sort of band. Also from the debut album this track is called Felicity…
This year Domino Records have released a massive 6 CD anthology containing 130 Orange Juice tracks. Here’s what a BBC Reviewer, obviously a big fan, said about the band:
In many ways, Orange Juice – with that deceptively innocuous name, so evocative of their aesthetic – were superior to The Smiths, more multifaceted and complex (they hailed their lack of worldliness but were nothing if not knowing). And their frontman Edwyn Collins was like Morrissey only with a more advanced sense of irony and a better, more varied record collection. Morrissey’s raffish wit and arch olde-worlde language were already in place on those early Orange Juice singles for Postcard – where Moz sang Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, Edwyn exclaimed, “Ye gods, I’m simply thrilled, honey” – while Johnny Marr’s Byrds fetish was pre-empted by the charged jangle of Blue Boy et al.
Orange Juice are perhaps best known for their one and only hit single in 1983, Rip It Up, from an album of the same name. It got to number 8 in the UK charts. Here they are miming badly on Top Of The Pops…
During the six years of their existence Orange Juice made just four studio albums, and put out 14 singles. Only Rip it Up made it into the UK top 40. In 1985 Orange Juice disbanded and Edwyn Collins pursued a solo career. He didn’t achieve much commercial success. It was a case of another one hit wonder with A Girl Like You from his 1994 album Gorgeous George. A Girl Like You got to number 4 in the UK charts and stayed in the top 40 for 14 weeks. It was also a hit in the States…
During the 90s and into the 2000s, Collins continued to make music. He also worked extensively as a record producer for groups like The Proclaimers. In early 2005 Collins suffered a brain haemorrhage and was rushed into the Royal Free Hospital in London. While in intensive care he had a second haemorrhage. The doctors said that Collins chances of survival were practically nil, but survive he did after undergoing a lengthy operation. He was left paralysed on the right hand side and had difficulty speaking. There followed years of rehabilitation that he is still undergoing. The BBC made a very good documentary about it which you can find on YouTube here.
The amazing thing was that although Collins could barely speak he could still sing perfectly well. The mysteries of the brain, ay. Last year he made and released the first album since his near brush with death in 2005. The album is called Losing Sleep. This is the title track from it…
