Echo & the Bunnymen-Songs to Learn & Sing (1985)-Songs to Learn & Sing (1985)

I only ever wanted, since the age of 13, to be the best singer of the best band in the world- Ian McCulloch Spin magazine interview, 2008.


This compilation brought together the band’s ten singles to date and introduced the previously unreleased Bring on the Dancing Horses.
Ian McCulloch described the 1984 album Ocean Rain as the greatest album ever made, and compared the first three Bunnymen LPs to the Mona Lisa, Van Gogh's Sunflowers, and The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Imagine a collage made up of elements from these three great paintings- not necessarily a pleasing picture in itself…just as a compilation such as Songs to Learn & Sing could have proved very unsatisfactory. But there isn’t a single minute of weakness here- a perfect introduction to the Bunnymen’s strangely poetic oeuvre.
I bought the 7” of The Cutter on the day that I had my interview for Art college, and at the campus I saw an awful lot of boys who looked just a little like small town Bunnymen.
Incidentally, if Echo really was the drum machine, replaced in 1979 by real drums and a real drummer, isn't it touching that they keep the name to this day?
Bunnymen:
Ian McCulloch – vocals
Will Sergeant – guitar
Les Pattinson – bass
Pete de Freitas – drums

Echo and the Bunnymen- Peel Session 15th August 1979

We had this mate who kept suggesting all these names …Echo and the Bunnymen was one of them. I thought it was just as stupid as the rest. -Will Sergeant.
Talk about transference. For a while I couldn’t take to the Bunnymen because there was this kid that I disliked who looked just like Ian McCulloch. Somewhere in my mind the idea formed that Mac must , therefore, be just as obnoxious as the kid I disliked. Eventually I even began to think that my dislike of the kid might have stemmed from his resemblance to McCulloch…
The kid moved away and I couldn’t just forget him because of McCulloch.
But just like everybody else I knew I bought Crocodiles and Porcupine and tutted at the bizarre miming of The Cutter on TOTP. This was, after all, a real group.
Then I started hanging out with a chap who was a huge fan of the Bunnymen (he always wore a pyjama jacket, never a shirt) he played nothing but Bunnymen, at home, in the car, in work. Slowly my prejudices shrank.
Funnily enough when the detested McCulloch lookalike moved back into the area he actually turned out to be quite a nice bloke.

Echo and the Bunnymen were managed by the great Bill Drummond, who went on to found the The Kopyright Liberation Foundation - and who once sent the band on a tour of obscure and seemingly random locations. Drummond however, later pointed out that if the locations were traced on a map in order then the resultant join the dots would form a pair of rabbit ears...
Line up:
Ian Mcculloch (Guitar, Vocals)
Will Sergeant (Guitar)
Les Pattinson (Bass)
Dave Balfe (Keyboards, Percussion, Drum Machine)