"Come on nature, I don't want to read a book or talk about the world. Come on nature, I just want to spend some time being boy to the girl". It doesn't come much more simple and direct than that, though compared with This is the Story, the bare-bones 1987 debut by these thick-accented Scottish twins, Craig and Charlie Reid, Sunshine on Leith is downright baroque. But the country and rock & roll embroidery - provided by a versatile pack of British folk rockers (including Fairport Convention veterans Jerry Donahue on lead guitar and Dave Mattacks on drums) - obscures not a whit of the innocent charm that carries over intact from the freshman effort.
While most of their contemporaries search for the meaning of life, the Reids (the sunny counterpart to those other Scottish Reid brothers, in the Jesus and Mary Chain) revel in its various manifestations. Not that they don't engage in existential music: God is thanked and questioned in several songs, but generally the Proclaimers concern themselves with very earthy matters, most prominently lust (Oh, Jean concludes the album in a randy frenzy). Even when they tackle politics, on What Do You Do? ("What do you do/When minority means you?"), the prevailing mood is one of tenderness and caring rather then.....
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