New Elbow Track Dis-Graceland 463–465 Bury New Road

Following tunes from Bugzy Malone, Mark E Smith, Graham Gouldman and a zillion others, Bury New Road has inspired yet another track, this latest one penned by former Prestwich resident, Elbow frontman, Guy Garvey…

Dis-Graceland 463–465 Bury New Road, released this week, is taken from Elbow’s Audio Vertigo Echo EP, and reference’s the rambling, shambling Grade II listed Victorian ‘villa’ that used to stand on the corner of Bury New Road and Vine Street, before it was unceremoniously demolished in 2021.*

The huge house was divided into cheap flats where an array of characters, including musicians, photographers, models and some very odd people lived and partied. One of these was singer songwriter, Bryan Glancy, who became a huge friend of Guy Garvey and Elbow.**

When Bryan died in 2006, the band dedicated an album, The Seldom Seen Kid, to him, plus a track on the album, Friend of Ours. There was also a tune on the later album Flying Start 1 named The Seldom Seen Kid in Bryan’s memory, while the band’s Mercury Prize in 2008 was also dedicated to him.

‘Dis-Graceland’ was the nickname of the Bury New Road house, given by residents who had to put up with some shocking conditions at the property, ranging from flooding to freezing cold high ceilinged flats.

Inside 463 Bury New Rd photo by Chrissie McBride

The song is a mellifluously haunting, eventually catchy, beautifully rhythmic psalm with a top-line by the Doves’ Jimi Goodwin. It imagines a dream meeting with Bryan, his ‘essence as fresh as the Prestwich dawn’. Guy reflects that the world’s ‘gone bananas’ without him, that his house has ‘fallen down‘ and that it’s ‘slow going on Kersal Moor’…

Dis-Graceland 463–465 Bury New Road

Life gives you lemons/Better write a bitter letter/Get it out of your system baby/Out of your in-tray/Way beyond the valley sets a brilliant sun/With a shade of vermilion/That’s a million to one

You came through in a dream last night with your sky-blue eyes and your crumpled fivers/Fished out of your sky-blue jeans for the means of anybody that asked you, benevolent B/ Open hand for the lonely that only closed to a fist for men if they were dealing in fear/Don’t know if you can hear me man but the world’s gone bananas without you

Ironically

Midnight meeting with you/You came through in a dream/From the other side or from the back of my mind/It doesn’t matter at all

I awoke with your stupid face emblazoned and your essence as fresh as the Prestwich dawn/Slow going on Kersal Moor and your house fell down but they’ve given all the land to the kids/And a statue of a dashing balloon singing Coward at a knackered piano by a silvery moon…

463 Bury New Rd photo by Chrissie McBride

Speaking about the whole EP, which includes three other tracks, Guy Garvey says it was about “finishing something for the band in lots of ways…

“We are having more fun in the studio than ever before. Craig [Potter’s] on fire as a producer, Pete [Turner, bassist] and Alex [Reeves, drummer] are the coolest rhythm section working and Pot’s unpredictable rhythm guitar has started working its way into such a soulful and accomplished place” he adds.

“The words are all stories from my past, sometimes joyful, often dark, but all of it exciting and mostly true” he explains “It feels like we’re having another go on the Waltzers after hours….I’m exploring something that happened years ago rather than writing about how lovely my garden is or how pleased with my son’s school report I am. That doesn’t really tickle me as a songwriter, so I’m going back to my dingy past, dramatising it, and making it more dingy in a lot of places.”

It doesn’t get more dingy than Dis-Graceland 463–465 Bury New Road – although, in its day, it was a hotbed of affairs, sanctuary and creativity…