Blue and Yellow Morning

Hello,

I’m Amy and this is my newsletter Why Sing Goodbye Songs where I share stories and songs from the archive of my dad, the late singer-songwriter Pete Scott.

If you just want to hear the song without reading the story, click here.

I’ve recently come across an old TV clip that I wanted to share with you all. It was amazing for me to see because it contained a famous family story. My mum, who some of you knew I’m sure, was a journalist called Sue Frost. Prior to meeting Sue, Pete had a rather cheeky habit of lying to journalists, often because he found some of the questions he was asked about his working class roots growing up on a council estate in Walker were condescending. He worked in the civil service before quitting at the age of 20 to pursue his music, but once sarcastically told a reporter asking about his background that he’d been a welder.

Anyone who knew Pete in person knows it could be very difficult to tell when he was joking because of how dry his delivery was, so we won’t blame the journalists for falling for it! The most famous incident of this came when Pete was filmed for a feature about the music scene in Newcastle on the local news. The interviewer was making a big deal out of the fact that Pete was from Walker, as was Eric Burdon of The Animals. Irritated at being compared to him, Pete made up a fact about his connection to Eric Burdon but then felt very sheepish when the journalist unexpectedly repeated it on the news. Pete told me this story many times, so I was absolutely delighted to serendipitously come across the footage. See if you can spot the porky in the below clip, which features Pete singing Cat Wants a Kipper from his debut album Don’t Panic.

Pete quickly realised he was going to have to pack in this sort of behaviour when he met Sue. They met when Sue, an award-winning journalist, interviewed Pete for a regular feature on the women’s pages of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle called “Man of the Month”. Pete used to joke that it must have been a slow month.

They were instantly taken with each other but Sue was unhappily married to a philandering husband at the time and so nothing more than an enjoyable interview came from their meeting to begin with. Although the music fans of Newcastle were left in no doubt about Pete’s feelings on the matter, when he started playing a love song featuring the line “Sue, Sue, Sue, she came to do an interview”. I’ve been surprised since I started interacting with you all how many people remembered this song! My mum had told me about it but suggested I didn’t mention it to my dad because he would be embarrassed. Although heartfelt, apparently it wasn’t one of his best.

Luckily for everyone concerned (not least me!), Sue’s husband ran off with a colleague shortly afterwards, to the great relief of Sue herself, who threw a party that night which got so loud and raucous that she couldn’t hear what her estranged husband was saying when he phoned up to check on her. At some stage the topic of the new Pete Scott song was brought up, and a whole gang of journalists took to the town in search of him. They didn’t find him that night, but Pete and Sue found each other again soon enough, and were together for the next 40 years.

When I first found all of these unreleased recordings, I did wonder what Pete would want me to do with them and whether the fact he hadn’t shared them himself implied that he didn’t want them to be released. But I quickly realised how many of the songs were about the early stages of his relationship with Sue, who died in 2011. It would have been too painful for him to relisten to these songs, let alone share them with his fans. But so many of them (especially on the album Brand New Smile, which I released after Pete’s death in 2023) are so beautiful that it would be a shame not to share them with you all now.

The song I’m sharing today was written not long after Pete met Sue. It’s called Blue and Yellow Morning. Press play below to hear it (opens in a new window if you’re reading this on email)

You can stream the song for free or download for £1 (or more if you’re feeling generous!) here. Just a quick note to anyone who wants to buy the download of this: tomorrow is Bandcamp Friday which means that for 24 hours Bandcamp doesn’t charge artists any fees on sales and 100% of what you pay goes directly to the artist. So if you’re wanting to buy it, waiting until tomorrow would be great.

Thanks for reading and see you next time,

Amy