Friday 7 January 2011

Distracted by the John Byrne covers for various Gerry Rafferty and Stealers Wheel albums now lying around the room (Can I Have My Money Back is a better album than I remembered, and why is Everything Will Turn Out Fine missing from the Spotify version of Ferguslie Park?), I've been trying to find photos online of Byrne's Partick gable end mural that was visible from the newly-built Clydeside Expressway, and I found this. I remember the later graffiti (graffito?) that read 'The artist's work is all in vain / Tiny Partick strike again", mentioned here. And the broken window shown here. It's easy with hindsight to spot that this could have become a world-famous landmark if he'd been commissioned to paint it on a building that wasn't about to be demolished, but thanks to Tom McGrath for getting it commissioned at all. Somewhere in the attic I have a cassette of Tom singing me the songs for his play Laurel & Hardy, but that's another story.