Ocean Rain - Background

Background

Following the poor reception of Echo & the Bunnymen's third album, 1983's Porcupine, the band recorded the single "Never Stop". The title track of the single was produced by Hugh Jones, who had produced the band's second album, 1981's Heaven Up Here. The single introduced a new sound for the band with an expanded arrangement including congas, marimbas, violins and cellos. After "Never Stop" was released on 8 July 1983 the band toured the Outer Hebrides in Scotland before two successful concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 18 and 19 July. Also that month, the band was filmed by RPM Productions for the Channel 4 documentary series Play at Home. Filmed in a café used by the band they recorded acoustic versions of two old songs, "Stars Are Stars" and "Villiers Terrace", as well as two new songs, "The Killing Moon" and "Silver", for their episode of Play at Home titled Life At Brian's.

After spending some time in Liverpool writing new songs for the album, the band recorded their sixth session for John Peel's radio show on BBC Radio 1 on 6 September 1983. The songs recorded were "Nocturnal Me", "Ocean Rain", "My Kingdom" and "Watch Out Below", which would all later appear on the band's fourth album Ocean Rain – "Watch Out Below" was later renamed "The Yo Yo Man". When the band's John Peel session was broadcast on 10 October 1983, the punk zine Jamming said, " hint at a readjustment and a period of new positive recovery."

Echo & the Bunnymen were booked to headline a two-week youth festival at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on the evening of 23 October 1983. Due to a high demand for tickets a matinee performance was added. The matinee concert at Stratford-upon-Avon saw the live debut of "The Killing Moon", "Seven Seas" and "Silver". With representatives from the band's record company and lead singer Ian McCulloch's mother in the audience, the performance was nervous and uncertain; although the evening performance, without the record company representatives and McCulloch's mother, was much improved.

At the end of 1983 Echo & the Bunnymen recorded a live special called A Crystal Day for the Channel 4 programme The Tube. Ignoring their old material, the band played "The Killing Moon", "Nocturnal Me", "Ocean Rain" – which had now developed into a ballad – and an early version of "Thorn of Crowns" called "Cucumber".