The Scuffers
Those Lovesick Blues
from "The Life I've Had"
2007
Writing a song is not that easy. Writing a song that people can hum on their way to work is even more difficult. Gavin Wallace, songwriter for Glasgow alt-country band The Scuffers, hit the bullseye this with "Those Lovesick Blues".
As a songwriter, Gavin Wallace shows a sentiment and humanity that makes it easy for people to relate to his songs. At Bluesbunny Towers, we regard "Those Lovesick Blues" as his finest achievement to date. Whilst the theme of the song - lost love - is a standard one especially to the country genre, our Mr Wallace empties his soul into the lyrics of this one as, after meeting the girl of his dreams, the protagonist of the song " … never got to give my heart to you". He waits for a phone call from his lost love but it is all over. He gets another call, his spirits soar but it turns out that it is still bad news. All our protagonist can do is stay in with only his lovesick blues for company. We have all been there so this song really strikes a chord.
There are 3 recorded versions of this track - on their first studio album "The Life I've Had", on their "Carlton Sessions" EP (with Clair Tierney on backing vocals), and on the soon-to-be-legendary-but-never-released live recording at the Garage in Glasgow (with Rebecca McChesney on backing vocals). Which version is best? That is a difficult one. Being diligent, Bluesbunny spent the last hour listening to all three versions over and over again. Just so we cannot be proved wrong, we will go for the live version that has not been released. No matter what version you hear "Those Lovesick Blues" is a classic song without a doubt.