Garbage Days Revisited #82: Strawberry Switchblade - "Strawberry Switchblade" (1985)

 

"Well maybe this could be the ending, there's nothing left of you/A hundred wishes couldn't save you...and I don't want to" - Strawberry Switchblade - Since Yesterday

Ah yes, the world of the one hit wonder. It's often the premise of novelty bands who hop on to a particular trend at a certain optimum moment in time and ride the wave to a solitary smash before promptly disappearing soon afterwards. But scratch beneath the surface and sometimes you'll find some genuinely good bands who undeservedly never quite broke beyond that one initial hit.

Glasgow's Strawberry Switchblade are one such case with their 1985 Top 5 hit Since Yesterday being what they're probably best remembered for. A sublime slice of bubblegum pop with doomy goth undertones (I was convinced for ages it was about suicide, it turns out it's about the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse. Cheerful stuff I think we can all agree), it's pretty much unique for its time period and deserves to be remembered as a bit of a semi-forgotten classic. Like Voice of the Beehive's more morbid older sisters or a less histrionic Shakespear's Sister, there's something just genuinely undeniably good about it. I mean, I've never made any secret of the fact that I'm a bit of a sucker for bright cheerful pop songs that disguise some genuinely dark lyrics underneath and Since Yesterday is pretty much up there with the Electric Angels' first album as a masterclass in this sort of songwriting.

Strawberry Switchblade were formed in the early '80s and were initially part of the proto-C86 scene that spawned the likes of Orange Juice and Aztec Camera. They were also friendly with a lot of the Liverpool indie crowd of the time including Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes - the group were initially signed to Zoo Records which was co-run by a pre-KLF Bill Drummond and the Teardrops' Dave Balfe before he moved on to set up Food records and their debut single Trees And Flowers came out on an indie run by the Bunnymen's Will Sergeant. It's safe to say that Trees And Flowers is a bit of a different proposition to Since Yesterday, written by guitarist Jill Bryson about her agoraphobia it's a genuinely unsettling slice of semi-acoustic indie.

During 1983-84 though, the group would hone their sound, slimming down from a four-piece to a duo of Bryson and singer Rose McDowall. They would move up to the majors with Warner subsidiary Korova who would put out Since Yesterday in late 1984. It climbed the charts painfully slowly but over the quiet Christmas period, it managed to nudge up just enough places to enter the Top 40 after stalling outside it for most of December and earned the group a Top of the Pops appearance which well and truly pushed it above ground and gave the group a Top 5 hit.

It would be enough to persuade Korova to let the girls record a full album which did respectably enough, making the Top 30, but further hit singles weren't forthcoming - second single Let Her Go stalled in the lower reaches of the Top 60 and even the emergency measure of putting out an electro-pop cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene couldn't save them as it missed the Top 40 as well. The group would start sessions for a proposed second album but Bryson would leave the band in 1986 and Cut With The Cake Knife would eventually emerge as a McDowall solo album a couple of years later.

All of which just leaves that debut album and it's a real shame it kind of slipped out only to be soon forgotten about as it proves that Strawberry Switchblade were about far more than that one song. Carrying on the vibe of the single, it's pop with a dark heart beating at the centre of it from the sinister Deep Water to the mournful ode to a condemned house, 10 James Orr Street. Oh sure, there's a couple of moments where the pop part of the equation is pushed to the fore a bit too much and the songs end up jarring with the overall feel of the album but Strawberry Switchblade certainly doesn't feel like an afterthought album designed to capitalise on a one hit wonder band, more like a genuinely accomplished slice of dark pop music which should have been the start of something great. A real shame that it wasn't.

McDowall would continue making music through the '80s and '90s although she would let the dark side of her personality well and truly come to the fore by collaborating with the likes of Psychic TV and numerous dark neo-folk bands. The Scottish indie Ann Boleyn from Hellion? Sounds daft but it's not a million miles off. This interview is certainly a bit of an eye-opener. Bryson meanwhile has also returned to songwriting in recent years.

In the end though, both Bryson and McDowall can rest easy knowing that, in Strawberry Switchblade, they came up with a great dark-pop album which mixes light and shade devastatingly well at times. It’s certainly so much more than just an afterthought for a one hit wonder group and it deserves a lot more respect than it gets.