Soul Music

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Soul Music: Sunshine on Leith

Sunshine on Leith

BBC Radio 4 - Soul Music, Sunshine on Leith

Exploring how the Proclaimers' Sunshine on Leith is a love song to humanity for many.

4 Extra Debut. The Proclaimers’ Sunshine on Leith became an anthem of love, bringing communities together and touching lives. From 2020.

Sunshine on Leith was released in 1988 but didn't become the big hit The Proclaimers had hoped for.  

However it has endured and become an anthem of love and a celebration of life.  

It is the song played at Hibs FC matches and has come to symbolise the sense of community felt by supporters. Margaret Alcorn recalls how she and her husband were involved in the Hibs Supporters Club organising and taking part in social events for local people in Leith. 

When their club came under threat from a merger with rival Edinburgh team Hearts she and her husband worked tirelessly to preserve it - and when her husband passed away the song was played at his funeral. 

Musician Ross Wilson grew up in Leith and is also a passionate Hibs Supporter.  The feelings of comfort and solidarity he experiences at home games led him to create his own version of the song which he performed with a choir to celebrate one of his favourite songs that reminds him of home and that he calls true soul music.

Melinda Tetley's family would always sing Proclaimers songs at home in Edinburgh while her three children were growing up. But when her teenage son fell ill with leukaemia, the song took on a special significance for them culminating in a spontaneous joyful singalong on a walk along a lochside.

The human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith is a big fan of The Proclaimers and remembers seeing them perform Sunshine on Leith in New Orleans just days after 9/11 to an audience of exactly eight people - half of whom were the prosecuting team in a Death Row murder case he was defending. 

Musicologist Dave Robb who toured with The Proclaimers explains the song's lasting emotional appeal and spiritual beauty.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.

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