Album · The Beautiful South
Welcome to the Beautiful South by The Beautiful South
Welcome to the Beautiful South is an album by The Beautiful South, released in 1989. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 8 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Song For Whoever”, on 4 lists with a best position of #11.
Welcome to the Beautiful South, the debut from the band Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway put together after the Housemartins, came out on Go! Discs on 23 October 1989 with Mike Hedges producing. It was cut as a five-piece, the two singers joined by Dave Rotheray on guitar, Sean Welch on bass and Dave Stead on drums, before the run of female vocalists began.
Heaton and Rotheray's songs are sweet as a Sunday afternoon on the surface and sly underneath, full of wry, beady-eyed looks at ordinary lives. "Song for Whoever" got to 2 in Britain, "You Keep It All In" to 8 and "I'll Sail This Ship Alone" to 31. The sleeve caused more fuss than the songs: Jan Saudek's pictures, one showing a woman with a pistol between her lips and the other a man with a cigarette, were too much for Woolworths, which refused to stock it, so a new cover went out with a stuffed rabbit and a teddy bear instead.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Welcome to the Beautiful South on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Song For Whoever | 4 | #11 | – | 1989–1999 | |
| 2 | You Keep It All In | 3 | #198 | – | 1991–2002 | |
| 3 | Woman In The Wall | 1 | #488 | – | 1991 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.