![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_deacon-blue-album-art.jpg\")
Mystery Hogmanay kissers whose photo inspired Deacon Blue album art<\/p>\nThe unknown couple whose Hogmanay clinch inspired a famous album cover and helped put the work of a Glasgow housing scheme\u2019s residents on the international map.Mystery Hogmanay kissers whose photo inspired Deacon Blue album art<\/p>\n
The hunt is on to trace a mystery couple whose Hogmanay kiss featured on the cover of iconic Deacon Blue’s<\/a> third album.<\/p>\n They are the unknown couple whose Hogmanay clinch inspired a famous album cover and helped put the work of a Glasgow<\/a> housing scheme\u2019s residents on the international map.<\/p>\n When photographer<\/a> and artist Alistair McCallum snapped a man and a woman in a New Year embrace in George Square in 1990 he captured a moment that became the starting point of album art for one of \u00adScotland\u2019s most popular bands.<\/p>\n The unwitting pair went on to feature on the front cover of Fellow Hoodlums, the third album by Deacon Blue<\/a>.<\/p>\n Released in 1991, the LP reached No2 on the UK album charts and its distinctive wood-cut artwork was on billboards everywhere.<\/p>\n Now the photo is part of a 30,000-strong archive of snaps to be digitised to preserve the work of Cranhill <\/a>Arts, set up in the 80s to create opportunities in the east end scheme and help stave off the impact of 50 per cent unemployment in Thatcher\u2019s Britain.<\/p>\n The project, Glaswegians, ran from 1989 to 1993 and catalogued everyday life in Glasgow in the period around the 1990s \u00adEuropean City of Culture, a time of deindustrialisation and before devolution.<\/p>\n Alistair was leader of Cranhill Arts and took the snap while photographing the beginning of Glasgow\u2019s<\/a> tenure as City of Culture.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cWe were taking photos in George Square on Hog-manay as part of the Glaswegian project that we did. We\u2019d been in the City Chambers taking pics as Jacques Chirac was handing over the European city of culture from Paris to Glasgow, and went to George Square after the Bells.<\/p>\n \u201cThis couple were winchin\u2019 and I took a photo. You\u2019d probably get lifted for that now,\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember the guy was holding a half bottle of whisky which I would have caught in the picture if I\u2019d taken half a step back, it would really have made it a classic Glasgow <\/a>image.<\/p>\n \u201cRicky Ross from Deacon Blue<\/a> got in touch with us to say he liked our work after he\u2019d seen a poster we did for May Day, and we showed him the drawings Jane had done from the photograph, and he asked us to develop that as an idea for the album cover.<\/p>\n Jane worked quite intensely on the kiss that ended up on the front of the record, a sort of muscular romantic.\u201d<\/p>\n The concept of everyday life in the city is one which flows through the record as much as the Cranhill <\/a>Arts group.<\/p>\n The songs criss-cross the city like a compendium of stories playing out on Queen Street and Kelvin Way, with references to pubs like The Budgie and Sloan\u2019s, as well as love stories about sailors working on the Clyde.<\/p>\n Jane Carroll, Alistair\u2019s artist wife, also worked on the designs for the record. She said: \u201cWe met the band and they were really keen on the woodcut style of our work.<\/p>\n \u201cRicky gave us the lyrics from the songs for the album before they were put to music, so we came up with our ideas based on the words, just like they were poems.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember when the album came out there were a limited number released with dabbity \u00adtransfers of the artwork, too.\u201d<\/p>\n The Fellow Hoodlums art, including covers of the band\u2019s singles like Your Swaying Arms and Twist & Shout, was the subject of an exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery<\/a> off the back of the album\u2019s success.<\/p>\n Alistair said: \u201cIt was a really Scottish and very Glaswegian vibe, sort of muscular romantic. A lot of the visual ideas came from the things we were doing for trade union events and so on, banners and scrolls.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a time when the external reputation of Glasgow <\/a>was changing, but the people here had always been proud of it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe photo that started the process for that record wouldn\u2019t have existed if it hadn\u2019t been for Cranhill Arts and what we were trying to do at the time with the photography<\/a> project.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a connection right through from the work we were doing with Cranhill arts and the artwork of the Fellow Hoodlums record and singles.\u201d<\/p>\n The success of the collaboration saw Alistair and wife Jane create covers for other Scottish bands such as The Blue Nile and Hue & Cry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did a lot of posters for gigs and festivals for things a lot of the bands around at the time were part of, like Medical Aid for Palestinians and anti-poll tax demos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As well as the massive digitisation project, some of the Cranhill Arts photos are now on show at \u00adGlasgow\u2019s Street Level Photoworks gallery in the Trongate.<\/p>\n The work done by Cranhill Arts \u2013 which still runs today \u2013 went beyond photography, with posters and banners also produced by the group, which Alistair led for 10 years.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cIt was hard to get a job in Cranhill at that time. People were desperate for things to do. Cranhill was the only housing scheme that got Arts Council funding for a visual project like that.<\/p>\n \u201cI was initially \u00adsupposed to be there as an artist in \u00adresidence and come up with a response to life in Cranhill, but I thought it was better to use the funding to bring in facilities for people to do their own art, screen printing, photography, T-shirt making. I saw my role as an addition to what they were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Photographer Ian Venart hails from Cranhill<\/a>. With no photography experience before becoming part of the project, within weeks he was teaching others how to shoot and develop.<\/p>\n His involvement in Cranhill Arts led to him establishing a decades-long career as a snapper.<\/p>\n Ian, now treasurer of Cranhill Arts, said: \u201cWe could all have gone in different directions in those days, especially in Cranhill<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I think back with a great deal of decades behind me its \u00adimportance was immense. Alistair and Jane came in and we all found a common interest.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_JS377238547.jpg\")
Streetworks Art exhibition by Alistair McCallum<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_JS377262910-1.jpg\")
Ian Venart pictured at Street Level gallery in Trongate 103<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_JS377262908.jpg\")
Ian Venart and Alistair McCallum pictured at Street Level gallery in Trongate 103<\/p>\n