Amsterdam frontman Ian Prowse marks 20 years of the hit Does This Train Stop On Merseyside?, the song, as he says, which saved his life.
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00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this
00:06afternoon to speak to Amsterdam frontman Ian Prowse now. It's a significant year this year,
00:11isn't it? You are celebrating 20 years of Does This Train Stop on Merseyside? 20 years. And you
00:17were talking about it. You say you shudder to think what would have happened had it not been
00:22for that song, which brought you back in from the cold, as you say.
00:26Yeah, yeah. Mate, I don't know how my life would have panned out if I'd have even been
00:34here, you know, because I was facing it like an existential crisis. I'm a songwriter and
00:42an artist. And if I'm not allowed to do that, you know, if I can't make the money to live
00:48out of that, then I'm not me, really. All my eggs were in one broken down basket when I
00:53wrote that song. And thankfully, it turned the corner for me.
00:58Isn't it extraordinary? You were saying that you didn't necessarily yourself spot the song's
01:02potential, did you?
01:04No, I didn't. No. We were recording down in South Wales. And we had this system whereby
01:09the new songs I'd written, I'd play to my producer, Tony Kiley. And then we'd pick two
01:13and we'd record them very quickly. And I'd played him three or four songs and he'd selected
01:19two. And then at the end, I said, I've got this other one and I'm not sure about it.
01:24I think some good words, but I'm not sure. And I did the first ever performance of Does
01:29This Train Stop on Merseyside to Tony Kiley, my producer. And he just, when it finished,
01:35he said, you're crazy. That's the best thing you've ever brought me. We're recording it
01:39right now. And I went, really, really? And he saw it straight off the bat. And I was, you
01:46know, he had to tell me, I'm too close to it, you know.
01:49Absolutely. But with distance in time, 20 years now and perspective, you can see why
01:54it's such an important song to people, can't you?
01:56Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you've got, you know, when you've got the likes of John Peel and
02:01Elvis Costello, Damien Dempsey and Christy Moore, you know, Christy's the uncrowned king
02:06of all Ireland, going on about it and showing it so much love, then you've got to take notice
02:14of those people. Right. So cast aside all modesty. Why is it such an important song to people
02:18and to you?
02:21Oh, I think because it's not like a song that's, that is going on about how great Liverpool
02:30is. It's not like a, you know, professional scouse, this is the best city sort of thing,
02:35because it's, it covers some of the darkest periods in all human history. You know, Liverpool's
02:40sexual role in the African slave trade and the, and the Irish famine, you know, is right
02:49in the middle of the song and has an influence all over it. You know, I'm, there's a, there's
02:53a huge streak of Celtic soul in my music. And I think it's because of that, you know, and
02:59there's, there's just honesty, but it's juxtaposed with, with just the, you know, the, the, the
03:05joy of a Saturday night out in Liverpool and the mundanity of EasyJet going overhead.
03:11So it's kind of like.
03:12But also the context of Hillsborough.
03:15Absolutely. Yeah. And the key lines about Hillsborough, which are so important to me, because I've
03:20got so many friends who survived what happened on the 15th of April in 1989 that, you know,
03:28I never, ever sing the song without giving it 100% intent and passion out of respect for
03:35them, you know, it, that's why it's every single time I sing the song, I'm laser focused
03:43on getting it right because for those people, you know.
03:47Well, you're going to be celebrating that song and much else with dates, including Shoreham
03:50and Portsmouth in our area. Really lovely to speak to you and congratulations on that anniversary.
03:56Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.