THE Guardian loves its ‘How we made’ articles explaining how songs came into being. Unfortunately they also remind you of acts you were not a fan of at the time. Such as these…

The Beautiful South

The song that somehow fascinates the Guardian is Rotterdam (Or Anywhere) . It’s not great: blandly tuneful, with lyrics that are just a vague gripe about beautiful rich people, inspired by a hungover Paul Heaton visiting an upmarket bar in Rotterdam where the staff clearly wanted him to leave. Maybe they were worried he’d start singing Happy Hour , which is quite annoying too.

Deacon Blue

Deacon Blue plagued the charts of the late 80s with crafted, inoffensive pop tunes such as Dignity, about an ageing, downtrodden council worker who plans to buy a boat and call it ‘Dignity’

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