Deacon Blue release Peace Will Come - Glasgow show on 14th October 2023

Deacon Blue have released a new song, Peace Will Come. This is the title track of the brand new acoustic album Peace Will Come that is included within the forthcoming You Can Have It All 14CD Box Set. Ricky Ross described the song as, "A unifying hymn for the ages, which echoes Deacon Blues earliest single".

"We really enjoyed playing our campfire sets on the last tour, when we deconstructed and rearranged songs to fit an acoustic format," says Ricky Ross. "Essentially, Peace Will Come is an extension of that concept. Its rough around the edges, but it captures the core of what we do. There are no overdubs or drops - we all just sang and played together and took the best take. Almost all of our albums are represented in its tracklisting - plus, we include a couple of cover versions weve often sung towards the end of our live shows. The one original song is the title track."

Peace Will Come, the unplugged CD revels in fresh takes on harmonic career-highs like Chocolate Girl (from Raintown), Delivery Man (from 2016s Believers), and In Our Room (from City of Love) - and thats not to mention gorgeous renditions of Bruce Springsteens Dancing in the Dark, and their long-standing live encore of Bob Dylans Forever Young. Recording the Peace Will Come CD has been a galvanising experience for the band, says Ross. "It ended up being a vital artistic exercise for us. After wed finished, I did think - Why have we never done this before?"

Peace Will Come was written by Ricky as a kind of hymn for the bands tour in 2020. The song took on more meaning once those shows happened in 2021 and 2022, with so many having lost loved ones in the intervening time.

In May 2022, Peace Will Come was performed at the bands homecoming show in Glasgow. By then, there was war in Europe, and Ricky dedicated the song to the people of Ukraine.

In Rickys moving introduction that night, he told the audience, "the song is a promise of hope more than certainty, but Im sure its true that Peace Will Come." A live video of that performance is now available for the first time!

Thirty-six years since that debut single, Dignity - and their debut album, Raintown - Deacon Blue have announced their most comprehensive greatest hits anthology to date, along with a career-spanning box set. All The Old 45s - The Very Best of Deacon Blue (2CD / double vinyl), and the 14CD You Can Have It All - The Complete Albums Collection, which includes that brand-new unplugged CD, will be released by Cooking Vinyl on September 1st, 2023.

All The Old 45s - The Very Best of Deacon Blue (2CD and double vinyl track listings below) coincides with the bands UK and Ireland tour of the same name (dates below), and charts their multi-million selling history - from bringing Chocolate Girl and Dignity to life in the corner of a Glasgow basement, to skyscraping, stadium-filling hits like Wages Day and Real Gone Kid, via their swoon-inducing tribute to Bacharach and David (Ill Never Fall In Love Again), their collective favourite single (Your Swaying Arms), and one of the most significant songs in the Deacon Blue canon, which followed a split in 1994 and the loss of two original members: 2012s comeback single The Hipsters heralded a new lease of life for the group, and jump-started a second act thats seen them more fired up, and prolific, than ever.

"Weve added so many songs, albums and EPs which have become a strong part of Deacon Blue and our live repertoire since The Hipsters in 2012," says songwriter and vocalist Ricky Ross. "It feels like the right time to celebrate that; to release something thats a true compilation of our music so far."

You Can Have It All - The Complete Albums Collection (14CD box set details below), meanwhile, is Deacon Blues most comprehensive musical biography to date. It features all of their studio long-players, including - among other wonders - their landmark debut (1987s Raintown); their post-split return to glorious form (2012s The Hipsters); their myriad fan favourites, many of which reached the UK Top 5 (1991s Fellow Hoodlums; 1993s Whatever You Say, Say Nothing; 2020s City Of Love); and the one that knocked Madonna off the top of the charts (1989s When The World Knows Your Name). There are two well-loved b-sides and rarities compilations (1988s Riches; 1990s Ooh Las Vegas) - and theres also a brand-new stripped-back compendium of hits, live favourites and cover versions, Peace Will Come.

The packaging for both All The Old 45s and You Can Have It All features rare photos from over the years, and extensive liner notes with new insights from all current members of Deacon Blue, who reflect on the songs - and albums, and memories - that mean the most to them.

It sees Ross wax lyrical on Wages Day ("As a songwriter, you get so many gifts every year, and your job is to know when to accept them," he laughs. "That was one..."); co-vocalist Lorraine McIntosh on dance-rock juggernaut and enduring live highlight Your Town ("Thats one of my favourites; its got this unbelievable energy and power..."); drummer Dougie Vipond on the song his late mum loved the best - "She always used to say we should have been number one all over the world with When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring) - and keyboard player / songwriter Jim Prime on Queen of the New Years bluegrass roots ("I wanted to write a southern train rhythm, so I grabbed a guitar and detuned the bottom string, and thats the riff that I came up with").

More recent recruits Gregor Philp (guitar / songwriting) and bass player Lewis Gordon variously muse on the thrill of The Hipsters, and all of the songs / albums that have followed, while also paying tribute to original members Ewen Vernal (bass) - whos still a lively and well-loved presence in folk and traditional music circles - and guitarist Graeme Kelling, who died in 2004. He will be forever missed, but hes never far from the silhouettes onstage, from our memories, and from the songs, even as the decades march on.

No-one is more surprised than Ricky Ross that theyre releasing a new compilation to mark 35 years of greatest hits; that a box-set of his bands albums to date now numbers 14 separate discs. In the 80s, he couldnt see beyond Raintown. "All I ever wanted to do was to make that album," he says of their calling card and politically-charged pop manifesto. "Everything else just got lost. I didnt give singles, or what might happen after that, any thought."

Not even thinking how good it would be.

Its a lifetime, yet no time at all, since Deacon Blue first roared their gospel according to hope, work, dignity, and Scottish towns beset with rain. Were still taking cover under their words. Everything and nothings changed. Theres still a thrill in pressing play. We still need their songs in our cities of love, in our hearts, in our homes, in these hurricane days.

All The Old 45s - The Very Best of Deacon Blue, and You Can Have It All - The Complete Albums Collection are both released September on 1st 2023, via Cooking Vinyl.

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