If you were to plot the careers of the Reid Brothers on a chart, you’d get something all over the place, all peaks and troughs, and in the most unexpected places. The early career was creative peak but commercial trough, subject to ridicule for their accents and their specs, before the genius songwriting of ‘500 Miles’ or ‘Sunshine on Leith’ became hackneyed and worn out by advertising and film syndication and football chant. Of course, their rise coincided with just the exploitation of these.
Now, they’re in another odd place – following their Comic Relief success have slipped back a little, their live shows the creative apex of that Big Train sketch where Ralph McTell has to play ‘Streets of London’ repeatedly and back to back for an hour to quell a riot of people who only want to hear The Hit.
This single is, sadly in a sense, a good tune, a rousing chorus but which will probably fade away to all but their most ardent and broadminded fans. Unless someone puts it on a film soundtrack or can think of a way to shoehorn a Scotland chant into the melody.