The Evolution Of A Song - The Steve Thompson Band

I was a big fan of the Searchers in the sixties so it was a pleasure to work with them in the early 80’s. Now not many people know this but the song they recorded was originally a “Cowboy Song”. Yes, the first demo demonstrates this both in the lyrics and in a short intro by a guy called Ken Black. Ken was a retired policeman and used to come round the studio a lot. For some reason that escapes me now, I had Ken record an intro to each song in the batch of demos. I explained the story behind the lyric as an imaginary western where a bad hombre was hiding away in a backwater one-horse town. The vocals on this track are by Phil Caffrey + Peter + Paul = The Caffreys. I played everything on that demo including drums which I’m not very good at by a long stretch

My publisher of the time, Brian Oliver called me and suggested if I were to take a verse from another of my songs (I’ve long forgotten which song) and the chorus from this one, re-write the lyrics then I’d have a hit on my hands. Always willing to oblige I did as he said and you can hear this version next on the audio collage. On this version, it’s just Smithie on drums and me on everything else (plus, of course, the Caffreys) In the early 80’s I was signed to MCA music and my mentor was Pete Waterman. Pete got the song to The Searchers who decided to cut it as their next single and the producer was to be Peter Collins (Gary Moore, Bon Jovi, Air Supply, Alice Cooper, Rush, Nik Kershaw, The Cardigans etc) Waterman was at the time Peter Collins’ manager. The next version you hear is the Searchers but this is not the mix that got released. This is an unreleased version
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It’s possible that this mix was a bone of contention between Waterman and Collins and may have lead to the breakup of their partnership. Collins thought that the raw rocky mix was a good representation of the modern day Searchers. Waterman disagreed because, as always he had his sights on the charts. He wanted all the bells and whistles and Collins obliged. The is the next version you hear and the one that was released. The single entered the lower region of the UK charts but it charted and went gold on a K Tel compilation album. Later the Searchers recorded another of my songs “Innocent Victim” and both tracks feature on their 30th and 40th Anniversary albums as well as various other compilations.

The Searchers were performing at Castles in Catchgate (Co Durham UK) which is near where I was raised and where my old band Bullfrog used to rehearse so I arranged to go along (by now I was living in Whitley Bay) When I got to the gig I went into the dressing room and introduced myself to the band. It was a great show and it was quite a blast to hear my song in the midst of all those classic tracks. What made it even better was that John McNally (or was it Frank Allen) introduced the song and said: “this song was written by a guy who used to go to school around here and he ‘s standing at the bar over there, Steve Thompson”. I got a big round of applause & it felt great.