How I wrote ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ by Del Amitri’s Justin Currie

Justin Currie: “I’ll stab you through the heart with a Biro if you interrupt me when I’m writing!”

The Scottish indie-rockers’ frontman explains how their biggest UK hit was written in a room above a Glaswegian chip shop

Formed by Justin Currie in 1983, Del Amitri were an alternative rock band that emerged from Glasgow on the crest of new wave and post-punk, but soon carved out a more mature sound characterised by jangly guitars and thoughtful lyrics that owed more to contemporaries The Smiths and fellow Scots Simple Minds. In fact, it was a tour supporting the former that gave Del Amitri their breakthrough during the mid-80s. Their second album Waking Hours, released in 1989, reached No 6 in the UK albums chart and provided them with their biggest hit at home with the song Nothing Ever Happens.

Here, Justin recalls the writing of a ‘list song’ that commented on Thatcherism from above a chip shop in Glasgow…

First published in Songwriting Magazine Summer 2015

Released: 1 January 1990
Artist: Del Amitri
Label: A&M Records
Songwriter: Justin Currie
Producer: Hugh Jones
UK Chart Position: 11
US Chart Position: –
Misc: Nothing Ever Happens was voted one of ‘The 100 Greatest Songs Of The 90s’ by listeners to UK radio station Absolute Radio

“I remember writing Nothing Ever Happens clearly, because it was the first thing I’d written in what felt like a folk milieu, and I was quite surprised that it had come out of me! I’d had the title for at least two years, and I knew it was a song about political apathy. It was right at the forefront of my brain for ages, and then it was one of those things that was written at four o’clock in the morning.

“I had this first-floor flat in Kelvinbridge in Glasgow, above a chip shop, and I was gazing out the window. I think views are really important for songwriting, and it had a really nice view along the bridge and right down into town. So there are lyrics which came from that, like ‘Every third car is a cab’.

“The lyrics came out very quickly, and I wrote the whole thing all at once. I think I started writing it at two in the morning and finished it by about five. Once you’re in the zone, you might be in it for six hours or two, but you can get an awful lot done. That’s why I can’t have people around me when I’m writing, because any interruption and I’m screwed. I’ll stab you through the heart with a Biro if you interrupt me when I’m writing!

“I think the key to the song was the coda to the chorus: ‘And they’ll all be lonely tonight, and lonely tomorrow’. It’s kind of a rip-off of Eleanor Rigby, but I think that set the emotional tone for the song. I realised I wasn’t writing an angry protest song – I was writing a resigned mourning of the absence of protest. I didn’t want the ‘nothing ever happens’ to be too accusative – accusing the audience that they weren’t doing anything about Thatcherism. I hate songs that lecture you, and I’m a wee bit guilty of that sometimes, but with Nothing Ever Happens I think I got just the right side of the line.

How I wrote ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ by Del Amitri’s Justin Currie was first published in Songwriting Magazine Summer 2015

“It’s also a bit of a ‘list song’, and the chorus is kind of a non sequitur, I suppose, because the verses are listing things that are happening but they’re a bit bleak, then the chorus is suggesting that we should try and do something about the fact that we were all sleeping through a period of revolutionary radical capitalism. Everybody went on strikes in the early 80s, around the miners’ strike and CND marches, but once the yuppy revolution kicked in, nobody gave a f**k! Scotland was supposed to be this socialist bastion, but everyone just went out and got plastered. So we were all looking around thinking, ‘We’re getting shafted here.’

“I’m not a very visual songwriter, whereas the song is full of visual things. I tend to struggle with imagery, but I think visual images were key to getting the audience to really ‘see’ the song. As soon as I wrote it, I knew it was special. After a rehearsal one day, the band went off for a coffee and I just played that song on my own, which I’d never normally have done. I think I was kind of auditioning it, and our manager, Barbara Shores, who was in the room making a cup of tea, just said, ‘That’s a hit.’

“It was written in 1987 and eventually came out in 1989. But Barbara and I secretly suspected that, if we could get the record company to put it out as a single, it would do us a lot of favours, because it was so different from everything else going on at that time. Even though it was quite miserable and political, and a bit of a protest song, it was definitely catchy. We were just lucky that the record company did release a third single!”

Justin Currie continues to write, record and tour both as a solo artist and as a member of Del Amitri, who reformed in 2012. For more information, see delamitri.com and justincurrie.com

First published in Songwriting Magazine Summer 2015

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