Remember when this Scottish band hit the shores of our much bigger country? MTV was young and this video was in heavy rotation, boosting the song to No. 3 on the rock chart and No. 17 on the Hot 100. Guitarists Bruce Watson and group founder Stuart Adamson got their guitars to sound like bagpipes with a distortion pedal, and wore tartan shirts to emphasize their roots.
I always preferred the longer album version myself.
Only their first LP sold well in the US, but they had a longer run in the UK. They faltered in the ’90s and gave their farewell concerts in 2000. Adamson had moved to Hawaii by then, but after a decade of sobriety he fell off the wagon after the band’s final shows. After being reported missing in late November 2001, he was found two weeks later, dead by suicide, in a Honolulu hotel room.