The Proclaimers are a band I've developed a soft spot for (like that patch on the top of a baby's head). And of their music, two songs often make my early-morning playlist: 'On Causewayside' and 'There's a Touch'.
While the songs are stark opposites, they both ignite the part of me that loves being in a band and make me tempted to call up some friends to see if we can cobble something together. Playing with other musicians is something I've taken for granted when you consider how often my work has put me in that position in the past, and it's such a distant prospect in the current circumstances. Pandemics and live music make unhappy bedfellows after all.
I only stumbled across 'On Causewayside' recently while shuffling Proclaimers music on my household's trusty privacy-infringing Amazon Alexa. It stood out to me for several reasons: firstly, because Causewayside is a part of Edinburgh I've stayed in a few times while on the Fringe, which lent the song's subject some familiarity, though it's the tender simplicity of the brothers' performance and their gentle, yet perfectly synchronised voices that get me. It's a delicate song about a place whose beauty might be missed if you didn't invest in the tiny details around you, like the love between the small child and their mum in the second verse.
While 'There's a Touch' seems to have little in common with 'On Causewayside' as it first bursts joyfully from your speakers, it's no less bittersweet when you clock its subject: the pain of loving somebody who doesn't want you. It actually reads more like an intense infatuation that hits you so hard it's like nothing else exists (like the first time you use a Karcher Window Vac). And it rings out like the best kind of pop. God, I want to play it. If only I had a bespectacled twin to bellow it out with, we'd be on it like a shot.