Blog Post
David B Archibald - 'Edinburgh'
Reviewed by Richie Adams • 27 November 2024
One of the things that’s always given me a wee pang on jealousy concerning my west coast amigos is that Glasgow people have a song, in fact they have several, that puts their city front and centre. Then there are the Americans, whether its Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago or any other bit town you can name, they have a song. Edinburgh, well, it just doesn’t. Then pops up David B Archibald and his new song that bears the city’s name.
This isn’t a song about Edinburgh; it’s a song about a boy growing into a man. That human just happens to have completed that process in this city. Edinburgh was his backdrop to the tears, troubles, traumas, and stains of moving from boy to man. It is evident too that this was a backdrop he was proud of.
Added to all this, there is a good helping of musicians self-doubt. That emotion seems to take the singer to a point where he feels he has to leave the city to find himself and ‘to be someone’. Those three words become the repeated refrain for the last part of the song. Now back in Edinburgh, where he ‘was born’, this strikes me as the singer’s statement of intent. He wants his city to know he has, indeed, become someone.
“Edinburgh” is a reflective take on home, dreams and ambitions. David looks back at his past and rather using rose tinted specs as his lens, he observes himself through the ‘bloodshot eyes’ of his high school years. That lens focuses on a few too many beers and some bad decision. He then moves to reflect on his ambitions as a musician and feels that his ‘dreams were bigger than songs’ he had. Like so many self-doubting musicians, this singer does not seem able to sweeten his drink by including any of the successes he has already enjoyed nor by adding how good much of his work, to date, has been.
Musically, this song is all about, well, the song. The music is, certainly to my ear, playing a supporting rather than a leading role; and that is just fine. The centre of this tune is David’s voice. It is clear, soulful and clearly invested in the work. He is not singing someone else’s words; the emotion is too evident for that.
David is an Edinburgh man and an Edinburgh man with a fantastic voice. He has been absent from the town and country for a wee while having left his home for love and marriage in the USA. It is great to see him back here, albeit for a short time. He is play in Edinburgh on 7th December and if you like your music soulful and delivered by a top voice, go get a ticket – you won’t be disappointed.