“Pure” by The Lightning Seeds

"Pure" was the very first Lightning Seeds single, released in June 1989 from the debut album Cloudcuckooland, and it was also the first song Ian Broudie had ever written and sung entirely himself. Broudie was working as a producer, and it was while producing a track for the Pale Fountains that he got the chance to put out his own music. He wasn't sure anyone would care.

He cut it at a studio in Kirkby, and only 200 copies were pressed at first, but radio play and attention at The Haçienda carried it much further. You can hear why: it's a shimmering, dreamy slice of pop, bright as a spring morning and light enough to float away. Broudie produced it himself, with Cenzo Townshend engineering, and it turned up again in the 2023 film What Happens Later.

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