“My girlfriend asked if it was easy to write a song and I said, ‘It’s very easy, I’ll write one now’”: Mike Scott on the making of The Waterboys classic The Whole Of The Moon

Mike Scott in 1985.

Next week, The Waterboys release a mammoth box set titled 1985, a collection covering the period when Mike Scott’s Celtic folk-rockers blew up big. That commercial breakthrough was propelled by their widescreen epic The Whole Of The Moon but, as Scott told this writer a few years ago, if it hadn’t been for a spot of spontaneous bragging, the song might not have ever existed.

“The Whole Of The Moon began in New York,” he said. “I’d gone there to meet a prospective manager, a big-time American manager. My prior girlfriend was hanging out with me and she asked me if it was easy to write a song and I was showing off and I said, ‘yes, it’s very easy to write a song, I’ll write one now.’”