40 Years Ago: Prefab Sprout’s Swoon
A track-by-track breakdown of Paddy McAloon’s idiosyncratic debut
Paddy McAloon is a musical genius. As a melodicist, I would put him in the company of heroes like Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, and Jimmy Webb, and as a lyricist, the only competition I can think of is Elvis Costello. He’s that good.
He’s also… idiosyncratic. That’s the quality that led him to pick the utterly meaningless name Prefab Sprout for his band when he was an impressionable adolescent during the early ’70s glam explosion and then keep it well past the punk era, as his teenage band practiced after-hours inside his father’s petrol station in the County Durham village of Witton Gilbert, following his studies at a local seminary. (Paddy eventually decided against taking his orders, mostly because he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of a vow of chastity.)
That’s also why, when Prefab Sprout signed with the British indie Kitchenware Records in 1983, Paddy — who had already written future hits like “When Love Breaks Down” and “Appetite” — decided that the band’s debut album would feature only his strangest, most unconventional songs. And that the album would be called Swoon, a title that stands for “Songs Written Out Of Necessity.” Swoon came out 40 years ago this week, on March 3, 1984.
