Back to Wales today, to a valley shaped by the mining industry... and arguably destroyed by the end of that industry. Today's song deals with that in heartbreaking detail.
Famous sons & daughters of the Rhondda include H from Steps, Denise Gyngell from Tight Fit (the lady married Pete Waterman, but there's no accounting for taste) and Mike Smash of Smashie & Nicey... Paul Whitehouse.
Despite what you may be thinking, the Beach Boys never recorded a song about Rhondda... but Rhyl band The Alarm did. And it must be their very best song, surely? A powerful indictment of "the rape of the fair country", it still sends shivers down my spine as it did when I first heard it, more than 30 years ago...
A song proving there's more to the band than the bombast of 68 Guns and Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke
ReplyDelete(although they did produce a fairly ropey cover of Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - but it did a a Welsh Male Voice Choir on it.
Another (outside) contender for the "could've been as big as U2 (if they got the breaks)" file