“Local Boy in The Photograph” by Stereophonics

"Local Boy in the Photograph" is where Stereophonics came in: their first single, lifted from the 1997 debut Word Gets Around on V2, and a song that found its subject in a real local tragedy. Kelly Jones later explained that it was based on a true story, a local boy killed by a train running between Cwmbach and Aberdare, and every song on the album is drawn from people and events around Aberdare.

Jones wrote the words, sings and plays guitar, and the music is shared with bassist Richard Jones and drummer Stuart Cable. First time out it stalled at number 51 in the UK; re-released in February 1998, it climbed to 14. After Cable's death, a Facebook campaign tried to push it to number one, and in June 2010 it re-entered the UK chart at 60.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.