Del Amitri - Learn To Cry

My last post was on the story telling brilliance of Always The Last To Know. A song that perfectly captures Justin Currie’s rare gift for taking an idea and a lyric and turning it into a song that sees into your soul. Tucked away on the B Side is a song that could well be my favourite Justin Currie song. That's a huge claim for a self proclaimed obsessive and Del Amitri bore. I've chosen to analyse the alternative version of Learn To Cry found on the back of a limited edition version of Tell Her This.

When I wrote the script for a drama featuring the songs of Del Amitri I needed this song to be central to the plot. It's a Play For Today in four minutes. We’ll let Justin set the scene….

It's twelve o'clock

The TV's on and I'm just sittin' around

I'm restless and blue but I

Can't figure out why

As the drunks on the park benches

Are putting their blankets down

I'm thinking, boy, you'd better learn to cry

There you go. Seven lines and you're in. It's mundane, it's everyday, it's real life. Dripping in ennui and melancholy but you have to stay with it.

Well, I could go to sleep

Or else recourse to alcohol

I could break up some of this

Room or just go outside

I could turn up some old hit so

Loud I can't hear it anymore

Sayin' boy, you'd better learn to cry

Boy, you'd better learn to cry

It's that way Currie captures a mood with the minimum of fuss. No syllable wasted. It's clever but not too clever. Like Always The Last To Know and indeed like almost all of Currie's back catalogue we’ve all been there. For me it's like he was stood in the corner of my living room through some of the darkest moments of my failing marriage. Maybe leaning against the door pencil in hand writing copious notes on just how useless one man could be at relationships. I wonder what the old hit is? I reckon it's a Beatles track. Maybe In My Life?

Girlfriends and wives punctuate

Your silence somehow in darkened rooms

In flickering black and white

She says all the actors in this

Movie are probably dead by now

You're thinkin', boy

You'd better learn to cry

Boy, you'd better learn to cry

He's setting himself up for the inevitable again. Learn to cry as you're going to need it when it's finally over. It's a pre break up break up song. The reason I chose the alternative version is because it has these extra few lines as a middle eight. Inexplicably left out of the ATLTK B side. If he was in my living room licking that pencil at the gold unfolding before him, he nailed this.

You'd better learn to try to forgive those little tantrums that she starts

As the daily drag of loving someone eats away your heart

You turn the pages of the paper as she turns in the dark

Iain and the band do their bit to try and lift the whole thing but the melancholy has seeped into every note, every beat, every moment. There's no escape as Currie unleashes what is without doubt my favourite verse he's written. What can I add to this? Strap yourselves in.

A familiar face with a loving

Smile greets you every day

And failure seeps a little

Deeper through your life

Yeah, sure you gave some girl your heart

But you never used it anyway

Sayin' boy, you better learn to cry

Boy, you'd better learn to cry

Then that's it. How can a simple song drain you and take so much yet leave you desperate to hear it again. I could almost name the day Currie’s ghostly figure gathered the research for this song and especially this denouement such is it's deep personal resonance.

Please give yourselves four minutes for this extraordinary kitchen drama in song.

Learn To Cry ( Alternative version)