intimidate anybody, but feeling intimidated? No.’ Declan simply
felt that his talents were at last getting due recognition from his peers.
Originally, the plan was simply for Declan to cut a single, because Stiff were operating on severely limited resources. With house producer Nick Lowe also moon-lighting on bass duties, a
stripped-down line-up of Declan, John McFee and Mickey Shine went into the tiny eight-track Pathway Studio in Islington, north London, to record ‘Radio Sweetheart’ – intended as
the first single – and ‘Mystery Dance’, the song from the
Honky Tonk
demowhich both Jake and Lowe had taken a particular shine to. Pathway was a
glorified box. ‘No bigger than the average front room, with a control booth barely able to contain two people and the mixing board,’ recalled Declan. ‘It was rather like recording
in a telephone booth.’ 7
It was all distinctly home-made. Nick Lowe banged a drum stick for the trills on ‘Mystery Dance’, while Declan hammered the piano. The fact that – to all intents and purposes
– he couldn’t play piano didn’t appear to concern him.
The sessions turned out so well that Stiff rethought their intial plans for simply cutting a 45. Instead, the label proposed a split album in the style of Chess Records’ legendary
Chuck Meets Bo
record, where Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had shared a side each. The plan was for Declan to split his debut with Wreckless Eric, aka Eric Goulden, another recent Stiff
signing.
‘Declan meets Eric’ didn’t have quite the same buzz, and neither artist was particularly keen on the idea – or each other for that matter – and to most observers
and certainly to Declan himself, it quickly became apparent that even half an album was not going to do justice to his talents. ‘I cut enough demos to make nonsense of this idea [of a side
each],’ 8 he later recalled. Thus,
My Aim Is True
became an album made by both accident and increment, as the scope of the record
steadily expanded, creeping from 7 inches towards 12, from 45 rpm towards the full 331/3 as Declan and the band put down more and more tracks.
As a full-time worker, not to mention a father and husband, Declan began cutting corners in all aspects of his life to ensure he was able to spend as much time on the music as he could. He would
skip work, go down to Headley Grange, rehearse a few songs with Clover, then the ensemble would travel up to London the following day to put the results on tape.
Everything was moving at a frantic pace. He was writing all the time, later claiming that he wrote much of
My Aim Is True
in little over a fortnight. ‘Waiting For The End Of The
World’ popped up ‘when riding on the underground. [It was] a fantasy based on a real late night journey.’ 9 Inactual fact, Declan claimed the song was partly inspired by watching legendary
NME
scribe Nick Kent – ‘obviously pretty out of it’ 10 – get on a tube bound for Osterley, oblivious to the mayhem he was causing around him. ‘Red Shoes’ was another train song, written on a British Rail
timetable on an inter-city between Runcorn Bridge and Lime Street stations in Liverpool, the tune held in his head for the duration of the ten-minute journey and then bashed out on an old guitar at
his mother’s house in West Derby.
‘Pay It Back’ came from the Flip City days, while ‘Less Than Zero’ took the elderly British fascist Oswald Mosely to task, written after Declan fumed over a television
programme which allowed Mosley to reminisce about his blackshirt days in the east End of London. It was recorded three days later. ‘That was unbelievable,’ admits John Ciambotti.
‘Less Than Zero’ was pretty amazing. Once we recorded it, I can remember hearing John McFee playing it about 150 times on his ghetto blaster in his room.’
But the pick of the bunch was ‘Alison’, a bitter-sweet love song with a chorus taking its inspiration from the unlikely source of The
felt that his talents were at last getting due recognition from his peers.
Originally, the plan was simply for Declan to cut a single, because Stiff were operating on severely limited resources. With house producer Nick Lowe also moon-lighting on bass duties, a
stripped-down line-up of Declan, John McFee and Mickey Shine went into the tiny eight-track Pathway Studio in Islington, north London, to record ‘Radio Sweetheart’ – intended as
the first single – and ‘Mystery Dance’, the song from the
Honky Tonk
demowhich both Jake and Lowe had taken a particular shine to. Pathway was a
glorified box. ‘No bigger than the average front room, with a control booth barely able to contain two people and the mixing board,’ recalled Declan. ‘It was rather like recording
in a telephone booth.’ 7
It was all distinctly home-made. Nick Lowe banged a drum stick for the trills on ‘Mystery Dance’, while Declan hammered the piano. The fact that – to all intents and purposes
– he couldn’t play piano didn’t appear to concern him.
The sessions turned out so well that Stiff rethought their intial plans for simply cutting a 45. Instead, the label proposed a split album in the style of Chess Records’ legendary
Chuck Meets Bo
record, where Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had shared a side each. The plan was for Declan to split his debut with Wreckless Eric, aka Eric Goulden, another recent Stiff
signing.
‘Declan meets Eric’ didn’t have quite the same buzz, and neither artist was particularly keen on the idea – or each other for that matter – and to most observers
and certainly to Declan himself, it quickly became apparent that even half an album was not going to do justice to his talents. ‘I cut enough demos to make nonsense of this idea [of a side
each],’ 8 he later recalled. Thus,
My Aim Is True
became an album made by both accident and increment, as the scope of the record
steadily expanded, creeping from 7 inches towards 12, from 45 rpm towards the full 331/3 as Declan and the band put down more and more tracks.
As a full-time worker, not to mention a father and husband, Declan began cutting corners in all aspects of his life to ensure he was able to spend as much time on the music as he could. He would
skip work, go down to Headley Grange, rehearse a few songs with Clover, then the ensemble would travel up to London the following day to put the results on tape.
Everything was moving at a frantic pace. He was writing all the time, later claiming that he wrote much of
My Aim Is True
in little over a fortnight. ‘Waiting For The End Of The
World’ popped up ‘when riding on the underground. [It was] a fantasy based on a real late night journey.’ 9 Inactual fact, Declan claimed the song was partly inspired by watching legendary
NME
scribe Nick Kent – ‘obviously pretty out of it’ 10 – get on a tube bound for Osterley, oblivious to the mayhem he was causing around him. ‘Red Shoes’ was another train song, written on a British Rail
timetable on an inter-city between Runcorn Bridge and Lime Street stations in Liverpool, the tune held in his head for the duration of the ten-minute journey and then bashed out on an old guitar at
his mother’s house in West Derby.
‘Pay It Back’ came from the Flip City days, while ‘Less Than Zero’ took the elderly British fascist Oswald Mosely to task, written after Declan fumed over a television
programme which allowed Mosley to reminisce about his blackshirt days in the east End of London. It was recorded three days later. ‘That was unbelievable,’ admits John Ciambotti.
‘Less Than Zero’ was pretty amazing. Once we recorded it, I can remember hearing John McFee playing it about 150 times on his ghetto blaster in his room.’
But the pick of the bunch was ‘Alison’, a bitter-sweet love song with a chorus taking its inspiration from the unlikely source of The
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