I recently enjoyed a film documentary about the Scottish band Simple Minds. (‘Everything is Possible,’ 2023, directed by Joss Crowley)

‘One performance at a time. One gig at a time. One verse at a time. One dream at a time. Doing the work.’
Jim Kerr

In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Simple Minds developed their own luminous blend of pop, punk, funk and art rock. They took their inspiration from Bowie and glam; from literature and European culture; from dance music and electronica. Their success was achieved through persistence, inventiveness and an independent spirit. They were ambitious, confident, optimistic. And they thought big.

'You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.'
Andrew Carnegie

Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill grew up in close proximity, on the Southside of Glasgow, an area struggling to recover from industrial decline. As working-class kids, they were raised to respect books and libraries, consuming the likes of Robert Tressell, Gunter Grass and Ray Bradbury.

‘Dad used to say: ‘You’ve got to read. You’ve got to educate yourself. If you educate yourself, you won’t be a slave.’’
Jim Kerr

Simple Minds ‘Empires and Dance’ Album Cover

They were also drawn to travel, and they hitched round Europe in their teens.

‘For some people, the world ends at the bottom of the street. For me and Charlie at the age of 14 or 15, it was: No, no, the world begins there.’
Jim Kerr

Burchill taught himself to play guitar on an instrument that his mother bought him with coupons from Embassy cigarettes. Kerr discovered that he lost his stammer when he sang. Inspired by David Bowie (‘He was our art school.’), they formed a glam rock band which expired after one gig. Then punk arrived in Glasgow.

‘The place was on fire with people deciding they were going to do stuff. The barbarians were at the gates.’
Jim Kerr

Their own punk band, Johnny & The Self-Abusers, was short-lived. But they were spurred on in 1978 to form Simple Minds (a name derived from Bowie’s 'Jean Genie') - a musical enterprise that would work from a broader palette, drawing on German electronica and the disco sound of Giorgio Moroder. Wearing sharp suits, sporting directional haircuts, and performing with a bold light show, they drew a cult following in Glasgow.

‘We’ll make it, because we’re convinced we’re too good to be ignored.’
Jim Kerr

Simple Minds’ first album, 'Life in a Day’ (1979), failed to capture the raw energy of their live shows. They felt it was too glossy and poppy. What’s more, the competition was hotting up.

‘The day before we finished recording, a mate came down and said: ’You wanna hear this.’ And he gave me ‘Unknown Pleasures’ by Joy Division. I thought: ‘Oh, no. We’ve blown it.’’
Jim Kerr

The band went straight back into the studio and recorded their next album, 'Real to Real Cacophony ‘(1979). This time the music was more experimental, more angular, more true to themselves.

‘We should go down our own path and see where it takes us…. Although the path was out of focus, it felt like it was the right path.’
Jim Kerr

'In passage of time,
To a cigarette burn.
In the book that I read,
To the sentence I learn.
Up and down,
Going round,
Going round 'till we drown again.
I'm gonna set myself up,
I'm gonna up to the top.
Up to the top,
To the top,
I'm going down to the ground.
Going round,
Till we drown,
Going round till we drown again.'
‘Factory’ (D Forbes / C Burchill / M Macneil / J Kerr / B McGee)

From 1979 through to 1981, Simple Minds performed with a line-up of Kerr, Burchill, Mick MacNeil, Derek Forbes and Brian McGee. They toured Europe extensively, soaking up stimulus as they went. They had a phenomenal work ethic and sense of purpose.

‘We knew there were sprinters, and we knew there were marathon men. And we wanted to be the latter.’
Jim Kerr

There followed a succession of compelling albums: ‘Empires and Dance’ (1980), which boasted the revolutionary single ‘I Travel’; the moody sibling recordings ‘Sons and Fascination’ and ‘Sister Feelings Call’ (1981); the peerless ‘New Gold Dream’ (1982).

At the heart of Simple Minds’ distinctive sound, Burchill’s chiming guitar blended with MacNeil’s shimmering synthesiser cords; McGee’s propulsive electronic rhythms fused with Forbes’ robust, complex bass. Kerr strode across the stage with feline grace, sometimes crouching on his haunches. His lyrics were impressionistic postcards, cinematic dreamscapes. He sang of the faded grandeur of European cities; of contemporary decadence, poverty and cold war unease. He sang of long, trance-like road journeys into the night; love in cold climates; and the exhilarating rush of new technology and the future.

Critically Simple Minds broke with the convention of looking to the United States for influences. They took their cues from Europe.

'Cities, buildings falling down.
Ideal homes falling down.
Those pictures I see on the wall,
Timeless leaders standing tall.
Assassin in a hit and run,
Asia steals a new born son.
Evacuees, refugees,
Presidents and monarchies,
Travel round,
I travel round.
Decadence and pleasure towns,
Tragedies, luxuries, statues, parks, galleries.
Travel round,
I travel round.
Decadence and pleasure towns.'
'I Travel’ (D Forbes / C Burchill / M Macneil / J Kerr / B McGee)

Gradually the band achieved the chart success to match the critical acclaim they had long commanded.

‘There just seemed to be this feeling in the air that was beckoning us.’
Jim Kerr

And, as they played larger venues, their sound naturally evolved.

‘If this is the kind of place we’re going to be in, we’re going to have to have a tougher sound. We’re going to have to be a bit more bombastic.’
Jim Kerr

Simple Minds’ music expanded, became bigger, more anthemic. And with the thumping, direct drumming style of new member Mel Gaynor, they could fill stadia.

'Up on the catwalk, a big wheel is spinning.
And Dollars to Deutschmarks, and pennies from heaven.
And up on the catwalk, there's one hundred million,
With letters from thousands that say ``Just who are you?''
There's one thousand names that can spring up in my mind.
But you'd call it blackmail and that's just not my kind.
And up on the catwalk, up on the catwalk,
And I don't know why.
I will be there, I will be there, I will be there.
I will be there, I will be there.’
‘Up on the Catwalk’ (C Burchill / D Forbes / J Kerr / M Gaynor / M Macneil)

The 1984 album ‘Sparkle in the Rain’ (1984) sold well, but the band remained largely unknown in the United States.

This all changed in 1985 when they recorded a song (written by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff) for the opening sequence of the film ‘The Breakfast Club.’ ‘Don't You (Forget About Me)’ became US No. 1. And they followed it up with the 'Once Upon a Time' album (1985), which scored four worldwide hits.

‘‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ didn’t just open the door. It was like a bomb going off.’
Jim Kerr

Simple Minds had hit the heights. They continued to record and tour the globe. But inevitably the relentless workload and competitive pressure took its toll. Over the next ten years their line-up underwent frequent changes.

‘We were knackered. We were desensitized. The band started to fracture. We were lads who had grown up together, we were meant to grow together, politically, spiritually and artistically. But we were getting tired with each other. There was an element of the chore creeping in. We were coasting and this whole other thing was a challenge.’
Jim Kerr

With evolving fashions and tastes, the band endured some fallow years.

‘You find out a lot about yourself when you’re in the back of a van driving to a club that isn’t sold out that night, and as you’re driving there, you drive past a stadium that you did sell out.’

Happily, Simple Minds are now, once more, properly appreciated - recognised as innovators, pioneers of pop music that was intelligent, inventive, ambitious. They teach creative people to read extensively, to travel enthusiastically, to draw on diverse experiences. They encourage them to work hard, to play the long game, to pursue their own path - in their quest to discover their own New Gold Dreams.

'Promised you a miracle.
Belief is a beauty thing.
Promises, promises.
As golden days break wondering.
As love takes a train.
Summer breeze and brilliant light,
Only love she sees, he controls on love.
Love sails to a new life.’
‘Promised You a Miracle’ (D Forbes / C Burchill / M Macneil / J Kerr)

No. 556

‘Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent - that half of art of which the other is eternal and immutable.’
Charles Baudelaire

Édouard Manet painted the vibrant modern world that was emerging around him in mid-nineteenth century Paris. Working in his own simple, direct style he created a bridge between Realism and Impressionism, and he is considered by many to have been the first modern artist. Some also think he was an archetype for Baudelaire’s ‘flaneur’: a debonair, detached onlooker, wandering the metropolis making acute observations on contemporary life.

Manet prompts us to reflect on our own engagement with change, culture and the city.

'Every new painting is like throwing myself into the water without knowing how to swim.’
Édouard Manet

Manet was born in Paris in 1832, into an affluent middle-class family. His father Auguste, a judge, wanted his son to follow him into the law. Then, when the young Édouard struggled at school, he suggested a maritime career. But a voyage to Rio de Janeiro culminated in failed Navy exams. Finally Auguste relented and allowed his son to pursue his long-held ambition to train as an artist.

Whilst Manet was a great admirer of the Old Masters, particularly the Spanish School, he was not fond of the Romantic art that dominated French painting at his time. Religious, historical and moral themes seemed less relevant to him than the Realism recently pioneered by Gustave Courbet.

Manet’s inclination towards Realism may have been inspired by the phenomenal structural and social change that was going on around him in his home town. France had been in constant upheaval since the revolution of 1789. When in 1848 Napoleon III became Emperor, he set out to transform Paris from a cramped medieval city into a vibrant modern capital. The Emperor commissioned Georges-Eugène Haussmann to carry out a massive urban renewal programme - demolishing existing streets to create space for a network of interconnecting boulevards, lined with cafes, restaurants and theatres; for new parks and railway stations; for gaslight and improved sanitation.

'I paint what I see and not what others like to see.’

Édouard Manet

Portrait of Charles Baudelaire in Profile by Edouard Manet

Around 1855 Manet became close friends with the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire. Each day they would stroll together through the new boulevards and parks of Paris, discussing the emerging industrial age, the thrill of modern city life and the responsibility of the artist to depict it.

In his essay ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ (published in Le Figaro in 1863) Baudelaire celebrated the work of Constantin Guys, the war correspondent, water colourist and illustrator. In particular he drew attention to Guys’ mastery of the fleeting moment; of passing fashion; of the here and now.

'He has sought, everywhere, the passing beauty of present-day life, the fleeting character of that which the reader has allowed us to term modernity. Often bizarre, violent, excessive, but always poetic, he has succeeded in concentrating, in his drawings, the flavour, be it bitter or heady, of the wine of Life.'
Charles Baudelaire

In the same essay Baudelaire also described the flâneur, the artist-poet of the modern metropolis.

'The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world... The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family…The lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.'
Charles Baudelaire

Manet shared Baudelaire’s enthusiasm for realism, modernity and the city (though he articulated his passion with fewer words).

'One must be of one's time and paint what one sees.’
Édouard Manet

His 1862 work ‘Music in the Tuileries’ presented contemporary Paris at leisure. We see a crowd of smartly dressed dignitaries, intellectuals and socialites, seated, standing and promenading under the chestnut trees. They rejoice in their fashionable clothing, in seeing and being seen.

We must assume from the title that a concert is taking place, but we can see no orchestra. Manet painted the assembly with loose strokes of the brush, distributing the figures across the picture as if in a frieze, with no obvious focal point. Most of the faces are just a blur. This is a brief passing moment; a story half told.

In amongst the throng in ‘Music in the Tuileries’ we can identify the painter’s brother Eugène, along with other family members and friends - including the musician Jacques Offenbach, the artist Henri Fantin-Latour and Baudelaire. Manet himself stands at the far left of the picture, impeccably dressed and holding a cane, a participant in the scene, but also slightly detached from it.

Edouard Manet - Le Chemin de fer (The Railway)

'It is not enough to know your craft - you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.’
Édouard Manet

Baudelaire’s description of the flaneur and Manet’s evocation of it may still resonate with us today.

We can imagine the Flaneur Strategist: a wandering observer, immersed in contemporary urban life. Someone who engages in culture and change; celebrates the new, the innovative and the fashionable. And yet also stands to one side – watching, witnessing, taking notes – alone in the crowd.

But the concept of the Flaneur Strategist also poses a challenge. With new technology we increasingly hide behind screens, pods, buds and beats. With maturity and success there is a tendency to withdraw; to cocoon ourselves in comforts. We retreat to the country, to bigger houses and better cars; to our own private bubbles.

If we want to sustain our careers over the longer term, we would do well to stay in touch with ordinary people; with the rhythm of the city, the clamour of the crowd, the commotion of change – participating in culture, reviewing it from the inside, not the outside.

‘Genius is childhood recovered at will.’
Charles Baudelaire

When it was first exhibited ‘Music in the Tuileries’ was poorly received – by both journalists and the general public. They were uncomfortable with Manet’s contemporary subject matter, his unusual composition and loose technique. Although the artist was fiercely independent, he was always sensitive to criticism.

Édouard Manet - **Un bar aux Folies Bergère**

'The attacks of which I have been the object have broken the spring of life in me... People don't realize what it feels like to be constantly insulted.’
Édouard Manet

Nonetheless, Manet persevered. ‘Music in the Tuileries’ was followed by more masterpieces: 'Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe', ‘Olympia’, 'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère;' by vital pictures of social events, and street and café scenes; by enigmatic portraits of fashionable people. He became the quintessential artist of the contemporary city; and something of a father figure to the Impressionists - socialising with them in city cafes and offering advice.

What we do not know is whether Baudelaire approved of Manet’s work. The writer remained curiously silent about his friend’s output. Perhaps Manet was not quite ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ that he had in mind.

'Some time,
Great times,
Troubled time.
Fire for the times,
Ringing out footsteps,
Calling out steel-heels.
Promised land.
Great times in commotion.
Here comes every day,
It only lasts an hour,
Unhappy the land that has no heroes,
No! Unhappy the land that needs heroes.’

Simple Minds, '20th Century Promised Land' (B Mcgee / C Burchill / D Forbes / J Kerr / M Macneil)

No. 441

Simple Minds: ‘We Should Go Down Our Own Path and See Where It Takes Us’

Manet, Baudelaire and the Flaneur Strategist