Photo by Peter Ashworth
CARE were a promising duo comprising of Ian Broudie and Paul Simpson who released three excellent singles between 1983-1984, but they split before they could complete an album.
However Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, recently issued a collection of tracks that would have likely formed that ‘lost’ album by CARE under the dialectic title of ‘Love Crowns & Crucifies’. Before CARE, Ian Broudie and Paul Simpson had been very active in the Liverpool post-punk scene around Eric’s club.
Broudie had been a member of BIG IN JAPAN in what would be now seen as a ”supergroup” with Holly Johnson, Jayne Casey, Budgie and Bill Drummond before joining THE ORIGINAL MIRRORS. In parallel, he maintained a production career, helming ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN’s first two albums ‘Crocodiles’ and ‘Porcupine’ under the moniker of Kingbird.
Simpson had been in INDUSTRIAL DOMESTIC with soon-to-be-Bunnyman Will Sergeant and the founding line-up of THE TEARDROP EXPLODES, before going on to form THE WILD SWANS with Jeremy Kelly and Gerard Quinn. But the trio split after their first single ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ produced by ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN’s drummer Pete De Freitas.
The two free agents were brought together in late 1982 by Will Sergeant and when Bill Drummond, now manager of ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, heard the results of their collaboration, he secured a deal with Arista Records. By coincidence, the label had also signed THE LOTUS EATERS, the new band formed by Simpson’s former bandmates Jeremy Kelly and Gerard Quinn with singer Peter Coyle.
Paul Simpson explained in 2025: “The blueprint was simple: HOT CHOCOLATE rhythms, George Murray bass lines, classical music instruments with pop sensibilities. We, the architects, however, were complicated”. It was telling that the artwork for CARE’s first single ‘My Boyish Days’ pictures two kites flying side by side… Simpson and Broudie were together but stood apart.
But that first release contained three superb tracks; combining strummed acoustic guitars with strong synthesizer melodies and melancholic vocals, the majestic ‘My Boyish Days’ had a very traditional feel despite the incumbent technology. On the B-side, ‘An Evening In The Ray’ exuded an almost folky feel despite the use of sequencers as mandolins. The template combined with six string strums for a very English approach as Simpson sadly declared “I sold my dreams away”. Meanwhile, ‘Sad Day For England’ was a beautifully mournful recollection of young manhood within a synth and drum machine framework.
The second single ‘Flaming Sword’ was another superb single that took its cue from ‘An Evening In The Ray’, laced with cascading woodwinds with a counter-melody that recalled OMD’s ‘She’s Leaving’. Featuring Pete De Freitas, it adopted live percussion after the drum machine dominated template of what came on their first three tracks, it would be the CARE song that endured thanks its being their highest charting single at No 48; Broudie would later perform the song with THE LIGHTNING SEEDS but his vocal could never match the doomed romanticism of Simpson’s haunted delivery. In hindsight, the veiled pop sensibilities of ‘Flaming Sword’ can easily be heard in the breakthrough hit ‘Pure’, especially with the bassline.
In anticipation of live gigs and not wanting to be seen as merely “another duo”, Tony Whelan and Paul Sangster were recruited as the rhythm section and the quartet appeared on BBC2’s ORS in 1984 to perform the third CARE single, the embittered ‘Whatever Possessed You’. Lyrically, it was still haunted by the original split of THE WILD SWANS.
With disagreements on musical direction and sound, particularly with Broudie’s use of the then state-of-the-art digital synths also adding to tensions, Simpson’s heart was not fully immersed in CARE and he actually did go “missing in action” with the album still not completed. Eventually sending a letter to Broudie, Simpson later remembered: “I walked away from CARE after a hit single in 1984 in a horribly selfish moment of cowardice and depression.”
After CARE, Simpson would return to THE WILD SWANS with the album ‘Bringing Home The Ashes’ in 1988 while Broudie would eventually find major success as THE LIGHTNING SEEDS. But in 1997 without the approval of either party, BMG (who now owned the Arista catalogue) issued the CD ‘Diamonds & Emeralds’ containing the singles and various unreleased tracks; it was even marketed as “CARE featuring Ian Broudie” to cash-in on the latter’s fame. Simpson stated his disapproval, saying that a number of the tracks were incomplete and mostly monitor mixes.
Fast forward almost 30 years and the newly mastered ‘Love Crowns & Crucifies’ marks the first long form release sanctioned by the duo. Needle Mythology worked closely with Paul Simpson and with the approval of Ian Broudie, using the original tapes which housed everything that the duo recorded together including demos and the yearning previously unreleased ‘Colour & Sound’.
The set fittingly begins with ‘On A White Cloud’, originally one of the B-sides to ‘Flaming Sword’; left off ‘Diamonds & Emeralds’ thanks to the disappointing vocal version taking its place, this was an epic instrumental with thundering percussion, castanets, ringing guitar and heavenly synthetic pitch bending strings. Another standout curio is ‘Miséricorde’, the instrumental piano interpretation of ‘Flaming Sword’.
The 4 part song suite ‘Besides’ which adorned the B-side of ‘Whatever Possessed You’ is all present and correct in full with only half having been made available before on ‘Diamonds & Emeralds’; of the quartet, ‘Besides One’ was a mournful stripped down number while ‘Besides Two’ was similarity minimal but instrumental and recalled CHINA CRISIS in its melody. But ‘Besides Four’ is still a pretty gem, a sweet oompah instrumental that evokes childhood happiness and deservedly made available in the digital domain.
‘Nature Prayed Upon’ could be SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES until Simpson emotes while ‘Temper Temper’ is more ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN and aesthetically authentic given Broudie’s previous work with them. Despite a brilliant intro, the rest of ‘Chandeliers’ sounded it needed more work with the jumping around of rhythm styles not quite coming off.
However, the enchanting ‘Cymophane’ sounds like what THE WILD SWANS would later sound like when they reformed for the album while the acoustically spirited ‘Love Crowns & Crucifies’ accompanied by piano and a string quartet was perhaps more what Simpson envisaged CARE to be. ‘Such Is Life’ falls under the spell of ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN’s ‘Ocean Rain’ with the brush work of Pete De Freitas obvious for all to hear while ‘Soldiers & Sailors’ offers classic scouse indie pop and ‘What Kind Of World’ fittingly gets swathed in doom.
The previously unreleased ‘Colour & Sound’ and ‘Diamonds & Emeralds (Deadly Nightshade)’ are welcome appendices but for ‘My Boyish Days’, ‘An Evening The Ray’, ‘Sad Day for England’, ‘Flaming Sword’, ‘On The White Cloud’ and ‘Whatever Possessed You’ alone, CARE deserve their place in cult folklore. While the rest of their output doesn’t quite reach the heights of these six magnificent tracks, that ‘Love Crowns & Crucifies’ is able to exist to give an insight into two musicians in transition is fascinating.
Although UK Top 40 success eluded CARE and THE WILD SWANS, both established a cult fanbase in the Philippines. Simpson would find critical acclaim with his instrumental project SKYRAY, opening on tour for ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN in 1998. When Broudie performed at Liverpool’s Royal Philharmonic Hall in November 2019 with THE LIGHTNING SEEDS, Simpson guested on ‘Flaming Sword’ by way of public reconciliation. In each of their own ways, things turned out well for the two of them in the end.
‘Love Crowns & Crucifies’ is released by Needle Mythology as a double vinyl LP and double CD
Paul Simpson’s memoir ‘Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism’ is published in paperback by Jawbone
https://needlemythology.com/releases/care/
https://www.paul-simpson.co.uk/
Text by Chi Ming Lai
1st July 2026
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