Waterboys тобының "Glastonbury Song" әні

1993 single by the Waterboys

"Glastonbury Song" is a song by British band the Waterboys, released in July 1993 by Geffen Records as the second single from their sixth studio album, Dream Harder (1993). It was written by Mike Scott and produced by Scott and Bill Price. The song reached number 29 on the UK Singles Chart and number 12 on the Irish Singles Chart. The accompanying music video was directed by John Downer.

Scott wrote "Glastonbury Song" in 1991 at his residence in Hudson Street, Manhattan using a Roland FP 8 and electric piano. Scott recalled on a Sodajerker podcast in 2015, "I had just bought the Roland keyboard and it had a couple of really nice sounds on it. It had the 'breathy' one which was the voice or choral sound, and it had a string one which is also used on the song." "Glastonbury Song" was inspired by the town in Somerset, England. Scott told Rolling Stone in 1993, "It's almost like a place to go on a pilgrimage, a holy, sacred place. It's inspiring to be there." He expanded in an interview with NME, "Glastonbury's a holy centre, a place of great spiritual power, and there are lots of spiritual legends associated with it, among them that Jesus came here when he was a boy. And Joseph of Arimathea – Jesus' uncle – brought the chalice, in which he'd collected Jesus' blood from the cross, and he buried it at Glastonbury and that's the legend of the Holy Grail. And when you go there, the place does have a power. You can really feel it." Lyrically, Scott has described the song as being "about a real feeling rather than a recollection of a specific incident". He told Melody Maker in 1993, "It's about finding God in my life or in my heart or inside me. I don't come from a particularly religious background, but I always believed in God. I think God and love are the same thing. I think unconditional love is the expression of God in the physical world. I'm not interested in the church's idea of God." Scott later recalled in a 2003 interview with Valley Advocate, "It's actually one of the most commercial, radio friendly songs musically that I've ever produced. In many countries it was successful, but in Britain, they wouldn't play it because of the chorus."

The front and back of the single sleeve features photographs of Glastonbury Tor, taken by Mid Somerset Series editor and amateur photographer Michael Mathias. Mathias, who was selling posters and postcards of his photography locally, was contacted by the Waterboys' New York based management company via the Glastonbury shop Gothic Image. They asked him for samples of his work and subsequently chose two images for the single sleeve.

The song's music video was directed by John Downer. Before a video was made for the previous single "The Return of Pan", Scott had refused to shoot videos for most of the Waterboys' singles. He considered the medium to taint the listener's relationship with a song and spoil their imagination of it by presenting imagery that was often "shallow and moronic". Scott suggested and controlled the vision for the video for "The Return of Pan", but was still left disappointed by the results as it was "a thousand miles from the intent of the song". As a result of that experience, Scott decided to give the director of "Glastonbury Song" the freedom to do as they wished. Scott received a number of ideas for the video from various directors, but he felt most were clichéd. After Geffen provided him with boxes of showreels from numerous directors, Scott opted to work with John Downer as he admired the director's video for Peter Gabriel's 1992 hit "Digging in the Dirt". Although Scott felt Downer's subsequent video treatment for "Glastonbury Song" contained a lot of clichés and misinterpretations of the song's lyrics, he agreed to go along with it and flew from the United States to England to shoot it. In his autobiography, Scott recalled how he felt "ill at ease" during the shoot and looked awkward on camera. Downer's attempts to rectify that by directing him more closely only worsened Scott's experience, making him feel like "a prisoner in my own promo: a kind of animated, patronised prop".

Scott made his only live appearance on Top of the Pops with "Glastonbury Song", which was broadcast on 22 July 1993. He assembled a "one off Waterboys" for the performance, which included guitarist Chris Bruce and drummer Carla Azar.