The Church's Starfish

More about the book

"After a string of commercial disappointments, in 1986 Australian rock band The Church were simultaneously dropped by Warner Brothers in the US and EMI in Australia. The future looked bleak. Seemingly from nowhere, Arista Records founder Clive Davis took a liking to the enigmatic band, flying them to LA to record with West Coast hitmakers Waddy Wachtel and Greg Ladanyi. Amid fractious sessions, and with no obvious hit song in the bag, they played Davis a demo recording of a strange leftover song. Neither a ballad nor a rocker, with mercurial lyrics, fugitive chords and a mystifying backwards bagpipe solo, "Under the Milky Way" transfixed Davis, who insisted it be included. Chris Gibson delves into the mysteries of this mercurial classic, tracing both its slippery cultural geography and its sumptuous songcraft"--