This Is Your Life

A rewind to 1991 today and to a song I posted back in 2010 when this blog was still in its first year. Banderas were a duo- Sally Herbert and Caroline Buckley- who were part of Jimmy Somerville's Communards band. They formed Banderas as a side project, signed to London Records and put this song out as a single. It went top twenty hit in March 1991. Built on one of those chunky early 90s rhythm tracks and containing a sample from Grace Jones' Crack Attack, This Is Your Life also featured guest spots from both Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner on guitar and backing vox, moonlighting from Electronic. Johnny's funky wah wah licks are easy to identify and the swelling strings and keyboards add some drama while Caroline sings, 'This is not a story/ This is not a book/ This is your life'. One of those songs that sounds like a postcard from the past, pinning a sound and a time onto a noticeboard as surely as photograph from 1991 could. 

This Is Not Your Life

Banderas 'This Is Your Life' (Ripe Mix)

Or the continuing adventures of Johnny Marr after he left The Smiths. As well as the Stex single I posted a while back Johnny lent his talents to this shaven headed pair. Banderas were two of Jimmy Summerville's Communards, Sally Herbert and Caroline Buckley, who formed Banderas as a dance influenced side project. This was their only hit, and I'm surprised to see it got to number 16 in the charts- don't remember that. This Is Your Life features Johnny Marr on guitar, tastefully funky and low in the mix. I seem to remember that they got Bernard Sumner in to work with them and he brought Johnny Marr along because he couldn't be bothered to play the guitar, but that could be false-music-press-after-twenty-years-memory-syndrome. Yes, I do remember ridiculous trivia. But if I don't write things down at work when people tell me them I've no chance. Anyhow back to Banderas, this is very early 90s, features that drum beat that seemingly every 12" had, is well Balaeric, and has what estate agents call 'plenty of period charm.'

Banderas - This Is Your Life ( Ripe Mix ) .mp3