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Who Are The Blue Nile? Meet Band Referenced In Taylor Swift's TTPD Song Guilty As Sin
The Blue Nile, the band in Taylor Swift's song Guilty As Sin brings their own distinct style to the music scene. Read on to learn more about it in detail.
For years, the Blue Nile has been one of Scotland's most popular bands. Thanks to Taylor Swift, a new audience may discover their music. The American superstar's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, pays homage to the 1980s Glasgow trio. The Blue Nile is mentioned in the opening words to her song Guilty As Sin.
The lyrics from Guilty as Sin, the ninth track on The Tortured Poets Department, start with a haunting image:
"Drowning in the Blue Nile. He sent me Downtown Lights. I hadn’t heard it in a while."
Taylor's voice continues with introspective lines: "My boredom's bone deep. This cage was once just fine. Am I allowed to cry?" She returns to the theme of the Blue Nile in these lines. Downtown Lights, released in 1989, marked the beginning of Blue Nile's brief American success story. It peaked at No. 10 on Billboard's American Modern Rock Tracks list.
Who is the Blue Nile?
Many music critics consider The Blue Nile to be one of Scotland's best-ever ensembles. Singer and guitarist Paul Buchanan, bassist Robert Bell, and keyboardist Paul Joseph Moore formed the Blue Nile in 1981 after playing in bands at Glasgow University in the late 1970s.
Although Scottish music was thriving in the early 1980s, the band was never pigeonholed into a specific genre. Their debut album, A Walk Across the Rooftops, featured melancholy, wistful pop music fueled by synthesizers and Buchanan's heartbreaking lyrics.
The album, which was released in 1984, featured a cover image of the band staring inside a structure on Cathcart Road in Glasgow's South Side that had previously been a church. It is said that it took the three months to sign a record deal; they were considered a reserved and modest group who took their time making their work and refused to seek attention.
The second album, Hats, is still considered a classic and the greatest album ever released in Scotland, according to a 2018 Herald newspaper poll. 1989 saw its release. Despite the release of two additional albums, the band has not officially disbanded, and no new music has been released since High in 2004. This year, Buchanan, who enjoys a prosperous solo career, will be present at the Celtic Connections festival.
The Reason Why Taylor Swift Has Referenced Blue Nile
Guilty as Sin, described as a breakup song, was inspired by her short-lived relationship with musician Matty Healy from 1975 to 2023. Healy is well known to admire the Blue Nile.
In a 2016 interview with the music website Vulture, he named Hats one of his favorite 1980s albums, describing them as "my favorite band of all time... Musically, they’ve inspired me so much."
In 2018, he told Entertainment Weekly that Swift's favorite song, The Downtown Lights, was the inspiration for the group's Love It If We Made It. Swift revealed that the song brought her to tears.
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