‘The Cutter’ – Echo and The Bunnymen, 1983
Second single from the third studio album by the Liverpudlian group Echo and the Bunnymen called Porcupine which was in itself a successful album in terms of sales. This was at a time when the volume of records sold were a lot higher than they are today. Fronted by the charismatic Ian McCulloch, another English singer that is not shy in voicing his opinions on other bands. With their penchant for drum machines and synthesisers, the band definitely has an eighties sound and feel to it.
Strangely enough the song begins with an excellent high tempo introduction, no slow build up on this one! and to me the song deals with the prospect of a band being dropped from a record label similar to the editing room for a film as seen from the line “Spare us the cutter” and also “Not just another drop in the ocean” and again in the line “Couldn’t cut the mustard“. In fact the song could be about any fear of rejection from any perspective. It must be the biggest nightmare for an artist to be dropped from a label , edited from a film scene etc…maybe not so much nowadays for musicians because of the internet but back then definitely.
Following on from there McCulloch tries to motivate themselves to believe that they are good enough and deserve to be where they are – at least until the next problem arises… “Conquering myself until I see another hurdle approaching.Say we can, say we will ” . All in all I think this song is very open, honest and personal about artists and people in general. Check out a video of the song here.












June 13th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Nice article.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
thanks !!
June 14th, 2008 at 4:52 am
EATB — The best band in the world. They have a new album out in July, called The Fountain. I think the new single is up on my site somewhere. Make sure to buy it — a return to form!