The Beautiful South’s ‘Old Red Eyes Is Back’: Write about what you know [January 19, 1992]

Paul Heaton can turn anything into a song

Welcome to This Week In The 90s, where we follow the UK Top 40 from 30 years ago. This week, we look at the song that was at Number 19 on January 12, 1992…

‘Old Red Eyes Is Back’ — The Beautiful South

There’s a moment in the recent Netflix musical tick, tick…BOOM! where playwright Jonathan Larson is on the phone with his agent. He’s just showcased his debut musical, a sci-fi rock opera based on Nineteen Eighty-Four. The showcase was a flop and nobody wants to produce it.

Larson’s agent gives him this advice: “next time, write about what you know.”

But all Johnathan Larson knew was being a broke, struggling writer in a shitty Brooklyn apartment, surrounded by friends dying of AIDS.

So, we wrote what he knew. The result was Rent, which went on to become the biggest musical of the 90s.

“Write what you know” is hideously painful advice, because life is generally quite boring, even for writers (especially for writers).

Last week, we talked about how pop lyrics usually focus on common themes, such as falling in love…