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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Interviews by Dave Simpson

‘I’d been singing the wrong word for 30 years’: Deacon Blue on how they made Dignity

‘Do Dignity!’ … Ricky Ross performing with the band in 1988.
‘Do Dignity!’ … Ricky Ross performing with the band in 1988. Photograph: Terry Lott/Sony Music Archive/Getty Images

Ricky Ross, singer, songwriter

I was a teacher in Glasgow but I wanted to start a band and write songs that meant something to people. Dignity began life during a holiday in Crete in 1985. I bought Sounds magazine at the airport. Morrissey was on the cover and the headline “Home thoughts from abroad” got me thinking about Glasgow. I was living in a tenement flat in Pollokshields, from where I’d see the cleansing department guys sweeping the road. So I started writing about a “worker for the council, has been 20 years” who dreamed of sailing away on a “ship called Dignity”.

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