Edwyn Collins – Scottish national treasure, indie hero, cinematic crooner – is arguing. Not with me, but with his wife Grace Maxwell, four decades of dry humour, world-weary bonhomie and lots of love bouncing towards me off the Zoom screen.
“When we were putting this list together, I was thinking how weird a thing it was for you,” Maxwell begins. “Oh, did you?”, says Collins, his eyebrows sky-high. Maxwell continues: “You listened to a lot of albums in full in the 70s, in your formative times. But after that, you’d drive me crazy, putting albums on, taking them off, chucking them all over the floor, not even listening to them in the end.”
Collins: “Was I drunk?” Maxwell: “This was when you were sober as well.” They’re like a comedy double-act for 90 minutes. “Half a record on, half a track off. Looking for singles, ideas – you didn’t use music for relaxation.” Collins suddenly nods. “Oh yes, there was that George Clinton one. Lots of good songs on it, but the whole album? A right mess!”
To speak to Edwyn Collins over the last 20 years is to speak to him and his wife, the irrepressible Grace Maxwell, who he met in 1980, and got together with five years later, when she was his manager (“It wasn’t a whirlwind romance,” she explains, “and I was thinking, what’s going to happen here is going to go tits up, and I’m going to lose my job, but 40 years later, here we are.”) 20 years after that, and 20 years ago last month, Collins had a cerebral haemorrhage while boiling potatoes for tea. He had another five days later, which required surgery, after which he contracted the superbug MRSA.
He spent six months in hospital after that, leaving with his right arm and leg weakened, and the after-effects of aphasia compromising his memory and speech. He has improved a lot since, but Maxwell’s support with his recall is clearly invaluable. Collins has also released five albums in the last two decades.
The last of these, Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation, is out on 14 March, named after the words on the talkback speaker in Collins’ home studio in Helmsdale, a village on the east coast of the Scottish Highlands, where the couple have lived for the last 10 years, and where Collins’ maternal family are from. It’s a beautiful record, full of heart, soul and country, with a gorgeous band in tow, including Welsh tropicalia-lover Carwyn Ellis and guitarist James Walbourne (who, for years, have been in The Pretenders together). It also includes gospel singers Lena Wright and Bianca Wright, and Collins and Maxwell’s son, William, with whom Edwyn wrote one of my favourite songs on the album, the dynamic ‘Strange Old World’.
The lyrics are sometimes personal (“Back when the words came easily, I had the answer to everything, revelling in a smart-alec comeback,” snaps the reflective title track) and occasionally nostalgic (sentimentally so on ‘The Bridge Hotel’, a simple ode to his village pub, where Collins first went when he was seven). They’re more melancholy on ‘The Mountains Are My Home’ (“The pace of life is sleepy slow / Now I’m finding a way / It’s time to go”). They can be political, too, like on opening track, ‘Knowledge. Hearing Edwyn sing, “The more I know of this old world / I don’t feel safe, I don’t have faith,” made my heart burn.
“I’m very pleased with the record,” he says, as he should be. Meanwhile, the 20th anniversary of his haemorrhage isn’t a big thing for him. “Edwyn’s never been a big one for anniversaries or marking dates, have you?” Maxwell says. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a Valentine’s card.” “No, no!” Collins counters. “I’ve got you several presents!”
The following conversation is a mix of me, Maxwell and Collins, the latter’s enthusiasm and playfulness clear throughout. The past lingers brightly in his memories of music, giving clues to the person he used to be and the person he remains.
Edwyn Collins’ new album Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation is released on 14 March via AED. To begin reading his Baker’s Dozen, click ‘First Selection’ below
