Artist · chart history · #300 in alternative artist polls · #617 in indie & aaa artist polls
The Waterboys
Band Edinburgh United Kingdom Formed 1983 folk-rock
The Waterboys formed in 1983 in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The Waterboys has 116 chart appearances on 68 radio countdowns from 20 stations on RockLists, spanning 1985–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “The Whole of the Moon”, which appears on 51 lists with a best position of #14. The station that charted The Waterboys most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 20 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1989.
The Waterboys are Mike Scott's band, and have been since he started it in 1983: the Scottish songwriter is the only member who has never left, with a revolving crew of mostly British and Irish players around him, from Anthony Thistlethwaite, Karl Wallinger and Kevin Wilkinson to Roddy Lorimer, Eddi Reader and Steve Wickham. The Waterboys, in 1983, had "A Girl Called Johnny", and A Pagan Place in 1984 gave the early sound its name, "The Big Music", after one of its songs: huge, surging, anthemic rock that seems to reach for the sky, heard on "Church Not Made With Hands", "All the Things She Gave Me" and "Rags".
This Is the Sea, in 1985, is the peak of that approach, and "The Whole of the Moon" is its crown, a soaring rush of wide-eyed wonder, with "Old England" and the title song alongside. Later in the '80s the band turned sharply toward folk, Irish and Scottish music especially, and Fisherman's Blues in 1988, with its title song and "World Party", swapped the thunder for something earthier and rootsier. Room to Roam followed in 1990 and Dream Harder, with "Glastonbury Song", in 1993.
That year Scott broke the band up to go solo, but in 2000 he brought the name back, and the Waterboys have been touring and recording ever since, rock and folk records alike, with Where the Action Is arriving in 2019.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Waterboys on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Whole of the Moon | 51 | #14 | – | 1986 | |
| 2 | Fisherman's Blues | 24 | #57 | – | 1989 | |
| 3 | All The Things She Gave Me | 7 | #750 | – | – | |
| 4 | This Is The Sea | 5 | #86 | – | – | |
| 5 | Church Not Made With Hands | 5 | #194 | – | – | |
| 6 | Old England | 2 | #122 | – | – | |
| 7 | Sweet Thing | 3 | #152 | – | – | |
| 8 | We Will Not Be Lovers | 1 | #616 | – | – | |
| 9 | Glastonbury song | 2 | #1193 | – | – | |
| 10 | World Party | 1 | #69 | – | 1989 | |
| 11 | A Girl Called Johnny | 4 | #1847 | – | – | |
| 12 | Where the Action Is | 1 | #72 | – | 2019 | |
| 13 | Rags | 1 | #1625 | – | – | |
| 14 | The Return of Pan | 2 | #1730 | – | – | |
| 15 | A man is in love | 1 | #27 | – | 1991 | |
| 16 | A Pagan Place | 1 | #1822 | – | – | |
| 17 | A Life of Sundays | 1 | #89 | – | 1990 | |
| 18 | Don't Bang The Drum | 1 | #1981 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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