Lightning Seeds

Lightning Seeds playlist

Contributor: John Laking

It seems appropriate that my first contribution to this site should be in praise of the Lightning Seeds. My first minor financial contribution to the music industry came some time in the mid-90s when I handed a portion of my holiday money over the counter at Woolworths, Skegness and walked out with a CD of their third studio album Jollification. The first music you buy with your own money can be a bit of a lottery. It’s a source of great relief to me that when asked the question I can happily name the Lightning Seeds, rather than one of the multiple acts that would bring a cringe to my face rather than a smile. In the years that have followed since that first purchase, my love for their work hasn’t dimmed and it’s been a joy to see Ian Broudie back out on the road performing under the Lightning Seeds name in the last few years.

Despite their success it’s always felt to me Broudie’s contribution to the music scene has been underrated, possibly not helped by becoming overly associated with Three Lions. It’s probably not a surprise that I haven’t found space in my 10 tracks for the unofficial song that became England’s anthem in Euro ˈ96 and has returned to the charts in different versions with great success more than once in the intervening years. Yet in its own way it showcases some of the magic that Broudie brought to the Lightning Seeds. Football songs tend to be pretty ephemeral even if they achieve decent success at the time. That Three Lions has endured is down to the gift for melody Broudie has showcased throughout his career. It may sound simple, but often the best melodies do, and that ability to tap into something that connects with people is a gift few people have. That he could still achieve that when working with a vocalist of David Baddiel’s limitations is quite the achievement.

The Lightning Seeds, though generally classified as a band, began as a solo project for Broudie. By this point he was already a familiar figure on the Liverpool music scene from his time in bands Big in Japan, Care and Original Mirrors. That he chose to record under the Lightning Seeds name rather than his own, is an indication of how collaborative a process it would be, even before the desire to tour some of the material led to a more traditional band forming, albeit with Broudie remaining as the only constant. The decision to make the project studio based with initially little expectation of performing the songs live, spoke to Broudie’s background in production which had become his main occupation through the late 80s. The connections he made through his successful production work both before, during and after the initial success of Lightning Seeds would pay dividends as numerous artists appeared in collaboration over seven studio albums, usually as songwriting partners, but sometimes as performers as well.

So, on to the reason we are all really here and the narrowing down of those seven albums worth of work into my personal top ten tracks. I didn’t find it an easy task and so over the course of the next few paragraphs I’ll talk about what makes the cut and name a few that didn’t but that I think are worthy of a bit of discussion anyway. Here we go …

Cloudcuckooland was released in 1990 and so many of the hallmarks of what would become to represent the Lightning Seeds sound is evident straight away. The layered production, gift for melody and effective collaboration are all there. The first single in particular, released in advance of the album in 1989, could almost read as a mission statement for Broudie’s project. Appropriately for a man who grew up during the 1960s in Liverpool there is a McCartney-esque lack of cynicism to Pure. Broudie’s voice is soft and vulnerable and provides a gentle beauty as he sings “and I love you” while “pure and simple every time” really does feel like a five word summary of so much of his songwriting output.

That vulnerability is again on show in the opening track of the album and third single, All I Want. “Cardboard men are strong but paper can be torn” perhaps the key line in a song co-written with Peter Coyle of the Lotus Eaters. Coyle also receives a co-writing credit on Control The Flame, a song that steps further away from the seemingly already quickly forming Lightning Seeds sound than anything else on the album. The inclusion of a deep baritone voice for the chorus refrain, perhaps an acknowledgement that this bouncing number is outside Broudie’s usual scope as he sings about leaning into desire “can’t control, control desire, but who the hell’d want to stop it now” in stark contrast to the messages of love and purity earlier in the record. Control The Flame may not be reflective enough of the usual sound for me to include it in my list, but remains a great listen and a difficult cut as a result.

The Lightning Seeds returned in 1992 with the album Sense named after its opening track. The first of several collaborations between Broudie and his friend Terry Hall to appear on a Lightning Seeds album. Together they create a glittery and dreamy explanation of what it is to be in love that somehow captures the energy and joy of that initial realisation. If I was trying to narrow my choices down to one song rather than ten then it would be Sense that made the cut. Its brilliance as a piece of songwriting only emphasised by Hall’s own recording released in 1994.

Sense was one of only two singles released from the album with track one and two flipped and The Life of Riley entering into the world first. Written with his baby son Riley in mind (as if the memory of buying a CD in Woolworths didn’t age me enough, then there is the fact that Riley is now part of the band), “here’s your life, we’ll find a way” it’s use by the BBC to accompany their Goal of the Month competition gave it a notoriety far beyond those who bought the record. Shorn of the typically buoyant lyrics by the BBC and left with the energetic instrumentation, it points more clearly to the higher energy, more anthemic turn that would define a lot of the Lightning Seeds sound across the mid-90s and lead Broudie to assemble a band to start touring. A Cool Place retains a lot of that energy while Happy feels like a refinement of Control The Flame as it takes the bouncy sound and deep backing vocal that made it such an interesting listen, but adds a more typical dreamlike whimsy through its lyrics.

The release of Jollification in 1994 marked a slight change in sound as Broudie pulled a band together and went out on tour. The initial three singles, Lucky You (another Terry Hall collaboration), Change and Marvellous burst with energy and are clearly written far more with live performance in mind than previous more heavily produced studio efforts. The latter showcasing another regular element of the Lightning Seeds work in the shape of a lengthy instrumental introduction. My Best Day features a shorter example with just over a minute of initially almost ambient sound building in intensity until we first hear the vocal. When that first vocal comes it isn’t from Broudie, but from another collaborator, this time in songwriting and performance, Alison Moyet. As sadly happens all too often these days, my relationship with Moyet has been complicated in recent years by personal views expressed on social media, but her contribution as one of the great vocalists of the era raises My Best Day far above the level of a second side album track. Broudie’s voice had combined well with female vocalists with the backing vocals of first Cate Shanks and then Juliet Roberts being key elements to the sounds of the first two albums. The strength and depth of Moyet’s voice gives the song a real punch and again shows that while the Lightning Seeds may have been largely a solo project for Broudie, his ability to collaborate with other artists so successfully was key to its success. Placed just before My Best Day on the album is another collaboration, this time with Ian McNabb the former frontman of another Liverpool band, The Icicle Works. Feeling Lazy is as close to an explicit homage to the Kinks – whose whimsical lyrics about English life never feel too far away as an inspiration – that Broudie ever wrote.

Ian Broudie stuck to a similar formula for the release of fourth album Dizzy Heights in 1996. Ready Or Not and Sugar Coated Iceberg arguably represent the Lightning Seeds at their most anthemic. Perhaps best representing the sunny, joyous elements of the album, though, is Like You Do. Once again teaming up with Hall, the song bounces along with real energy and a burning positivity, “Be everything you are, cherish what is true, celebrate with those who need to be with you.” It was an appropriate choice as title of the 1997 Best Of album, albeit bizarrely the actual song didn’t feature. Bringing a different energy to the album is Waiting For Today To Happen co-written with the Manics’ Nicky Wire. Slower paced and stripped back it stands out on the album, but comes as a result of that same move towards songs geared more to live performance than the more heavily produced initial albums. Broudie’s voice is the key to the song’s success as he brings the same softness and vulnerability that we’d heard on songs of positivity and love to this song of a man struggling with life and scared of the future.

If Dizzy Heights had built on the successful formula found on Jollification then the 1999 release Tilt was an attempt at moving in a totally different direction. Having grown increasingly uncomfortable with the Lightning Seed’s success, Broudie chose to move away from bouncing indie optimism and explore a more electronic, dance and soulful sound. In addition, Tilt has more in common with the melancholy lyrics of Waiting For Today To Happen than much of what had come before. The two singles released from the album are indicators of the change in direction with Life’s Too Short pushing the sound in a more dance-oriented direction while Sweetest Soul Sensations, featuring a sample of Al Green, feels lyrically as far away from Pure and Sense in its depiction of being in love as could be possible “Love brings mood swings, love hurts”. If Only represents a similar shift from an idealistic representation to love with even Broudie’s voice sounding more world weary. The song was co-written with Mike Pickering, founder of M People, and represents a move towards that more electronic sound. Tilt garnered some positive reviews, but struggled commercially. My sense is that over the years popular opinion has changed a little and I’ve been very pleased to see people warming to an album I’ve always been very fond of. Nonetheless, the album’s relative lack of success coupled with a general disenchantment with his 90s fame (it’s hard not to read “I’ve been caring less and less since my overnight success” from techno banger Crowdpleaser as being at least partially autobiographical) led Broudie to leave the Lightning Seeds behind and spend the first few years of the new millennium concentrating on producing work for other artists. For a while it looked like it would be five albums and out.

Ian Broudie returned to making his own music in 2004 with his first official solo album, the back to basics Tales Told. Then in 2009 the Lightning Seeds name returned with the release of Four Winds. As the only album not represented in my final list of 10 you would be forgiven for imagining I’m not a huge fan. That isn’t the case. It’s a quietly thoughtful and very personal feeling album. The reason I haven’t picked anything is that it was never intended as a Lightning Seeds album. Broudie wrote and planned it as his second solo album, but was pushed to release it under the Lightning Seeds name. Now I know this starts to get a little bit complicated as to when a solo album is a solo album and when it isn’t, given the various interchanging members of the band around Broudie have really been there as a vehicle to perform live rather than having any creative control. Somehow there is something different about Four Winds though, which sets it apart from all the Lightning Seeds discography and places it much closer to Tales Told so I do categorise it differently. Perhaps unsurprisingly the two singles on the album, Ghosts and Don’t Walk On By are the two tracks that feel most like they could slip relatively unnoticed onto an earlier album. Overall, it’s a much more melancholy record, reflecting on aspects of Broudie’s life and with a sound that edges towards folk and 60s psychedelia at times. It’s a beautiful little album exemplified for me by the song Said And Done. It’s not represented on my list, but you should definitely go and listen to it anyway.

At the time of writing, the final album to bear the Lightning Seeds name came in 2022 with See You In The Stars. In many ways it feels like the natural joining point between the familiar sounds of the 90s releases and Broudie’s 00s solo work. That blend is perhaps best exemplified with two songs. First is Emily Smiles, once again written with his great collaborator Terry Hall. It’s the sort of buoyant pop record that Broudie for a while left behind as he explored more melancholy themes. The album’s title track and closer on the other hand is a deeply personal ode to a friend after their death. It’s a beautiful song, which mixes a sadness with a hope that somehow, somewhere we might see the people we have lost again. With the Lightning Seeds still touring on the back of the release of a new Best Of album to celebrate their 35th anniversary, it’s hard to say whether See You In The Stars proves to be the final new material released. If it is then the title track represents a beautiful farewell from an act that have brought so much joy through their work.

Lightning Seeds official website

Lightning Seeds Archives

Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds facebook

Lightning Seeds Official Public Facebook Group

Lightning Seeds biography (AllMusic)

John Laking lives in Lincoln in a small rented flat that isn’t really big enough to house all the physical media collected over the years. He can be found on BlueSky @Laking86 where he will likely be banging on about music, films or sport.

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