Echo & the Bunnymen—the other lads from Liverpool—is a post-punk band led by a moody poet named Ian McCulloch. Formed in 1978, they were as goth as The Cure and grandiose as U2; they defined 1980s New Romanticism.
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But they wouldn’t survive the ’80s intact. McCulloch quit the band in 1988. The following year, drummer Pete de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was driving from London to Liverpool to rehearse with McCulloch’s replacement, Noel Burke.
Echo & the Bunnymen’s peak creative achievement is the album Ocean Rain. The record defied what critics thought the band was capable of. Finally, they had made an album worthy of McCulloch’s confidence. He infamously said Ocean Rain was the greatest album ever made. It is not. But it is a brilliant effort.
Guitarist Will Sergeant was the antithesis of ’80s guitar bloat. He sculpted iconic and colorful parts using minimal notes. Alongside Johnny Marr and John McGeoch, Sergeant is a hugely influential alternative rock guitarist. His primary musical descendant is Coldplay’s Jonny Buckland.
McCulloch was as self-assured as Bono. While U2 became the biggest band in the world, Echo & the Bunnymen were disintegrating. In contrast to Bono, McCulloch self-destructed under the weight of even semi-stardom. Thankfully, though, the original lineup recorded five beautifully gloomy albums. Here are five must-hear tracks from Echo & the Bunnymen.
5. “Seven Seas” from Ocean Rain (1984)
By their fourth album, Ocean Rain, the dark romantics from Liverpool went pop. “Seven Seas” is loaded with Phil Spector-style Wall of Sound. This is Echo & the Bunnymen moving from brooding Northerners to astral dreamland pop. The choruses were getting bigger, and McCulloch’s vocal ability was becoming evident. The Bunnymen were reaching for the stars. They used a 35-piece orchestra in Paris to help them sound as big as the ocean. Yet for these romantics, the ocean sits under rainy skies.
Seven seas
Swimming them so well
Glad to see my face among them
Kissing the tortoiseshell
4. “The Cutter” from Porcupine (1983)
“The Cutter” begins with an Eastern theme. Echo & the Bunnymen often looked around the world for thematic inspiration. The band reaches an epic state when the strings kick in halfway through the song, and are topped by McCulloch’s operatic baritone. Porcupine was their third album and reached No. 2 on the U.K. Albums chart—their highest position. Initial album reviews were poor. But the otherworldly flight of “The Cutter” set the critics straight.
Come to the free-for-all all
With seven tapered knives
Some of them six feet tall
We will escape our lives
3. “Bring on the Dancing Horses” from Songs to Learn and Sing (1985)
“Bring on the Dancing Horses” was recorded for the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. The earthy visuals in the Bunnymen’s songs live in a dream-like state. Maybe the perception has to do with the band’s fairytale-sounding name. McCulloch looks at the human search for meaning in art. The statues are brittle and headless. The search for a new Messiah begins by the song’s end. “Bring on the Dancing Horses” might be the quest for an explanation, salvation, or a savior. For most people, it’s probably all three.
First, I’m gonna make it
Then I’m gonna break it till it falls apart
Hating all the faking
I’m shaking while I’m breaking your brittle heart
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2. “Lips Like Sugar” from Echo & the Bunnymen (1987)
In a 1992 interview with Q magazine, McCulloch dismissed “Lips Like Sugar” as “the sound of Radio America.” What many consider to be Echo & the Bunnymen’s signature song is ironically the least-Bunnymen-sounding single. But, thanks to MTV’s 120 Minutes, it raised the band’s profile in the U.S. They went from touring in clubs to selling out theaters. The song is about alluring someone who remains elusive, like a swan. Coldplay covered “Lips Like Sugar” with McCulloch at the T in the Park Festival in 2003.
She floats like a swan
Grace on the water
Lips like sugar
Lips like sugar
1. “The Killing Moon” from Ocean Rain (1984)
Ian McCulloch woke up with the phrase, Fate up against your will in his mind. “The Killing Moon” was born from, he claimed, divine inspiration. McCulloch formed the chord progression by playing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” backward. He plucked the song from the stars, Bowie, and God. On a trip to Russia, guitarist Will Sergeant and bassist Les Pattinson heard folk music played on a balalaika. It inspired the mandolin-style parts performed by Pattinson. “The Killing Moon” was a Top 10 U.K. single, a highlight of 1980s British rock. It’s also the Bunnymen’s best song.
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
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