There is more than one band with this name.
1. Lowlife was a Scottis… Read Full Bio ↴There is more than one band with this name.
1. Lowlife was a Scottish post-punk/dream pop band, active from 1985 to 1997. Although never obtaining mainstream popularity, they developed a cult following that continues to this day.
Early years: Pre-Lowlife
Dead Neighbours was an early-1980s psychobilly band from Grangemouth, Scotland, originally consisting of Craig Lorentson (vocals), David Steel (bass), Ronnie Buchanan (guitar) , and Grant McDowall (drums). The band was managed by Brian Guthrie, brother of Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins, and had recorded an album, Harmony in Hell (1982), that briefly hit the lower regions of the UK independent record charts.
In 1983, Steel left the Dead Neighbours in the middle of recording the band’s second album, Strangedays/Strangeways. Upon learning that Cocteau Twins founding member and bassist Will Heggie had recently departed that band (after a lengthy and reportedly difficult European tour), Guthrie asked Heggie to help Dead Neighbours out in finishing the album’s recording, and join them on a tour opening for Johnny Thunders. Heggie agreed and, after the album was completed and the tour was done, he stayed on and began rehearsing new material with the band. Guthrie noticed that with Heggie, the entire chemistry of the group suddenly changed and they began forging a completely new, atmospheric sound very different from their original Cramps-influenced beginnings. Apparently unhappy with the direction they were clearly aiming for, Buchanan abruptly departed the band. A new guitarist was brought in, Stuart Everest, who adapted quickly to the band’s updated vision. In 1984, the group retired the Dead Neighbours moniker for good and rechristened themselves as Lowlife.
Lowlife: 1980s
In 1985, Lowlife recorded Rain, a 6-song mini-album. It was released on Nightshift Records, a label formed by Guthrie specifically to release material by the band. All subsequent Lowlife LPs, singles, and EPs would appear on Nightshift, with the exception of their final album, Gush, which was released on the Anoise Annoys Records label. Rain was modestly successful, receiving generally positive reviews and sold well enough to appear on several independent charts in the UK, US and France.
In 1986, the band’s debut album, Permanent Sleep was released and received critical praise from several UK and US music publications. Trouser Press noted that the album “…delves deeper into instrumental and vocal textures, with layers of strummed and picked guitar and slippery bass chords (shades of New Order) dominating the sound. Despite Lowlife's concentration on ambience, the affecting "Wild Swan" is a lovely song, punctuated by repeated guitar triplets fluttering overhead.” [1] Melody Maker said “Lowlife practice a mystical form of musical alchemy, with crystalline perfection.” Sounds gave the album four stars and commented “Lowlife construct their deep atmospheres through hypnotically mysterious songs…”
An EP, Vain Delights, was released in late 1986. The production of the EP was financed by the band’s new association with Working Week, a recently formed publishing company run by Jeff Chegwin, twin brother of television presenter Keith Chegwin. Record Mirror called the release “Profound, melancholic, and reaches the parts other ephemeral pieces of plastic cannot reach.” A song from the EP, “Hollow Gut”, received airplay on BBC Radio by both John Peel and Janice Long, and a music video for the song made appearances on UK television, including DEF II.
The band took six months to record their second album, Diminuendo. Released in 1987, the album received extremely positive reviews and is generally considered to be the band’s finest full-length effort. Q magazine gave it four stars and observed, “A further phase in Lowlife’s refinement…Evocative and dramatic. But never overbearing.” Melody Maker noted, “Lowlife emerge from a distant eerie grace, out of an echo or pause with unworldly drama. The isolation, resonance of this music can bring to mind the notion of the Music of the Spheres.” Music Week said, “Diminuendo is a landmark album, bustling with feeling, dripping with emotion and soft to the touch.” Trouser Press stated, “The aptly titled and excellent Diminuendo reduces Lowlife's volume by stripping the arrangements of their thickening ingredients, leaving only the bass, simple drums and frugal bits of guitar and keyboards to support Lorentson's increasingly ambitious and musical vocals.”
Subsequent to the release of Diminuendo, the group underwent a lengthy UK tour as support to headliners The Go-Betweens. The tour helped bring Lowlife to a wider audience, and culminated in a critically well-received show at The Town & Country Club in London, a performance which Guthrie would later describe as “possibly the best set of their career.”
Also in 1987, a live performance of the band specifically shot for BBC Scotland was broadcast on television, and a single (“Eternity Road”) and an EP (Swirl It Swings) were released.
In 1988, Lowlife rehearsed new material and Guthrie presented demos of some songs to Working Music, which was associated at the time with Chappell Music. Stephen Fellows, vocalist and guitarist of the Comsat Angels, heard the demos and agreed to produce the album, but this was dependent on whether Working Music and Chappell Music would commit to finance the recording. However, while discussions were underway, Warner Bros. Records absorbed Chappell Music, and the Warner regime passed on the option of signing Lowlife. Working Music subsequently dropped the band.
The band started undergoing a level of internal strife. Guitarist Everest was asked by the other band members to leave, for reasons never made clear. Hamish McIntosh was brought into the group as Everest’s replacement.
In 1989, the band’s third album, Godhead was released. Critical response was slightly less effusive this time, with Music Week noting that the album “…takes us back to that classic case of a band who never reap enough acclaim because they won’t play the game. But they deserve serious attention.” Trouser Press was unimpressed: “The misnamed Godhead lacks the emotional drive that sparks all of Lowlife's other albums and winds up labored and dull, a collection of unaffecting songs that plod — even at brisk tempos.”
Lowlife: 1990s
In early 1990, following a soccer match accident in which he lost a finger, McDowall decided to retire from the music business and left the band. McIntosh also left, to pursue a career with his own band, Fuel. New guitarist Hugh Duggie and drummer Martin Fleming were brought in as replacements. That same year, while the band adjusted to these most recent personnel changes, Nightshift issued a compilation album, From a Scream to a Whisper, consisting of previously released songs taken from the band’s earlier singles and albums.
In 1991, Lowlife and Nightshift Records began experiencing a series of financial problems, brought on by the collapse of Rough Trade Distribution, which left small independent labels with far less options to have their various titles distributed to record stores. Guthrie had to borrow a substantial amount of money to finance the recording of the band’s fourth album, San Antorium. The album received positive but unspectacular reviews, and the sales were no better or worse than their previous offerings. There were no live shows to support the release. The band’s momentum had clearly stagnated.
It would be four years later before the group got around to recording their fifth, and final, album, Gush. The recording sessions were apparently by a very professional but unenthusiastic band, and the extremely muted critical reviews reflected this lack of excitement. As with San Antorium, Lowlife did not tour to support Gush.
In 1997, after playing fewer and fewer shows to progressively smaller audiences, and with family commitments an ever growing concern for all band members, Lowlife effectively called it quits, although there was never any “official” announcement of a breakup.
In 2006, all of Lowlife’s back catalogue was re-released on CD, augmented with multiple bonus tracks and featuring extensive liner notes by Brian Guthrie.
Craig Lorentson passed away in the hospital on June 4, 2010. the funeral was held on June 11, 2010. Lorenston was 44 years old.
2. Lowlife is a redneck rebel rock 'n' roll band from USA.
3. LOWLIFE is a new powerviolence band from Long Island.
South Shore Scum Violence.
http://lowlife631.bandcamp.com/
4. LOWLIFE is comprised of Liam Haygarth, Nathan Mortimer, Harry Todd and Jordan Cardy, operating out of a dilapidated studio lock-up on a farm in Essex. The project commenced at the height of the first wave of lockdown, with the four members collaborating via Zoom.
5. Lowlife is a queencore/punk band out of Winnipeg, Canada. They are comprised of Brooke, Caitlin (also from Epirus and Co Komono), Anya and Meghan. Sometimes Zach from Co Komono/A Grizzly Fate plays guitar with them. They released their debut single, 'Nice Guys Finish Fast' in December of 2022 with Ian Ingram as producer/engineer.
1. Lowlife was a Scottis… Read Full Bio ↴There is more than one band with this name.
1. Lowlife was a Scottish post-punk/dream pop band, active from 1985 to 1997. Although never obtaining mainstream popularity, they developed a cult following that continues to this day.
Early years: Pre-Lowlife
Dead Neighbours was an early-1980s psychobilly band from Grangemouth, Scotland, originally consisting of Craig Lorentson (vocals), David Steel (bass), Ronnie Buchanan (guitar) , and Grant McDowall (drums). The band was managed by Brian Guthrie, brother of Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins, and had recorded an album, Harmony in Hell (1982), that briefly hit the lower regions of the UK independent record charts.
In 1983, Steel left the Dead Neighbours in the middle of recording the band’s second album, Strangedays/Strangeways. Upon learning that Cocteau Twins founding member and bassist Will Heggie had recently departed that band (after a lengthy and reportedly difficult European tour), Guthrie asked Heggie to help Dead Neighbours out in finishing the album’s recording, and join them on a tour opening for Johnny Thunders. Heggie agreed and, after the album was completed and the tour was done, he stayed on and began rehearsing new material with the band. Guthrie noticed that with Heggie, the entire chemistry of the group suddenly changed and they began forging a completely new, atmospheric sound very different from their original Cramps-influenced beginnings. Apparently unhappy with the direction they were clearly aiming for, Buchanan abruptly departed the band. A new guitarist was brought in, Stuart Everest, who adapted quickly to the band’s updated vision. In 1984, the group retired the Dead Neighbours moniker for good and rechristened themselves as Lowlife.
Lowlife: 1980s
In 1985, Lowlife recorded Rain, a 6-song mini-album. It was released on Nightshift Records, a label formed by Guthrie specifically to release material by the band. All subsequent Lowlife LPs, singles, and EPs would appear on Nightshift, with the exception of their final album, Gush, which was released on the Anoise Annoys Records label. Rain was modestly successful, receiving generally positive reviews and sold well enough to appear on several independent charts in the UK, US and France.
In 1986, the band’s debut album, Permanent Sleep was released and received critical praise from several UK and US music publications. Trouser Press noted that the album “…delves deeper into instrumental and vocal textures, with layers of strummed and picked guitar and slippery bass chords (shades of New Order) dominating the sound. Despite Lowlife's concentration on ambience, the affecting "Wild Swan" is a lovely song, punctuated by repeated guitar triplets fluttering overhead.” [1] Melody Maker said “Lowlife practice a mystical form of musical alchemy, with crystalline perfection.” Sounds gave the album four stars and commented “Lowlife construct their deep atmospheres through hypnotically mysterious songs…”
An EP, Vain Delights, was released in late 1986. The production of the EP was financed by the band’s new association with Working Week, a recently formed publishing company run by Jeff Chegwin, twin brother of television presenter Keith Chegwin. Record Mirror called the release “Profound, melancholic, and reaches the parts other ephemeral pieces of plastic cannot reach.” A song from the EP, “Hollow Gut”, received airplay on BBC Radio by both John Peel and Janice Long, and a music video for the song made appearances on UK television, including DEF II.
The band took six months to record their second album, Diminuendo. Released in 1987, the album received extremely positive reviews and is generally considered to be the band’s finest full-length effort. Q magazine gave it four stars and observed, “A further phase in Lowlife’s refinement…Evocative and dramatic. But never overbearing.” Melody Maker noted, “Lowlife emerge from a distant eerie grace, out of an echo or pause with unworldly drama. The isolation, resonance of this music can bring to mind the notion of the Music of the Spheres.” Music Week said, “Diminuendo is a landmark album, bustling with feeling, dripping with emotion and soft to the touch.” Trouser Press stated, “The aptly titled and excellent Diminuendo reduces Lowlife's volume by stripping the arrangements of their thickening ingredients, leaving only the bass, simple drums and frugal bits of guitar and keyboards to support Lorentson's increasingly ambitious and musical vocals.”
Subsequent to the release of Diminuendo, the group underwent a lengthy UK tour as support to headliners The Go-Betweens. The tour helped bring Lowlife to a wider audience, and culminated in a critically well-received show at The Town & Country Club in London, a performance which Guthrie would later describe as “possibly the best set of their career.”
Also in 1987, a live performance of the band specifically shot for BBC Scotland was broadcast on television, and a single (“Eternity Road”) and an EP (Swirl It Swings) were released.
In 1988, Lowlife rehearsed new material and Guthrie presented demos of some songs to Working Music, which was associated at the time with Chappell Music. Stephen Fellows, vocalist and guitarist of the Comsat Angels, heard the demos and agreed to produce the album, but this was dependent on whether Working Music and Chappell Music would commit to finance the recording. However, while discussions were underway, Warner Bros. Records absorbed Chappell Music, and the Warner regime passed on the option of signing Lowlife. Working Music subsequently dropped the band.
The band started undergoing a level of internal strife. Guitarist Everest was asked by the other band members to leave, for reasons never made clear. Hamish McIntosh was brought into the group as Everest’s replacement.
In 1989, the band’s third album, Godhead was released. Critical response was slightly less effusive this time, with Music Week noting that the album “…takes us back to that classic case of a band who never reap enough acclaim because they won’t play the game. But they deserve serious attention.” Trouser Press was unimpressed: “The misnamed Godhead lacks the emotional drive that sparks all of Lowlife's other albums and winds up labored and dull, a collection of unaffecting songs that plod — even at brisk tempos.”
Lowlife: 1990s
In early 1990, following a soccer match accident in which he lost a finger, McDowall decided to retire from the music business and left the band. McIntosh also left, to pursue a career with his own band, Fuel. New guitarist Hugh Duggie and drummer Martin Fleming were brought in as replacements. That same year, while the band adjusted to these most recent personnel changes, Nightshift issued a compilation album, From a Scream to a Whisper, consisting of previously released songs taken from the band’s earlier singles and albums.
In 1991, Lowlife and Nightshift Records began experiencing a series of financial problems, brought on by the collapse of Rough Trade Distribution, which left small independent labels with far less options to have their various titles distributed to record stores. Guthrie had to borrow a substantial amount of money to finance the recording of the band’s fourth album, San Antorium. The album received positive but unspectacular reviews, and the sales were no better or worse than their previous offerings. There were no live shows to support the release. The band’s momentum had clearly stagnated.
It would be four years later before the group got around to recording their fifth, and final, album, Gush. The recording sessions were apparently by a very professional but unenthusiastic band, and the extremely muted critical reviews reflected this lack of excitement. As with San Antorium, Lowlife did not tour to support Gush.
In 1997, after playing fewer and fewer shows to progressively smaller audiences, and with family commitments an ever growing concern for all band members, Lowlife effectively called it quits, although there was never any “official” announcement of a breakup.
In 2006, all of Lowlife’s back catalogue was re-released on CD, augmented with multiple bonus tracks and featuring extensive liner notes by Brian Guthrie.
Craig Lorentson passed away in the hospital on June 4, 2010. the funeral was held on June 11, 2010. Lorenston was 44 years old.
2. Lowlife is a redneck rebel rock 'n' roll band from USA.
3. LOWLIFE is a new powerviolence band from Long Island.
South Shore Scum Violence.
http://lowlife631.bandcamp.com/
4. LOWLIFE is comprised of Liam Haygarth, Nathan Mortimer, Harry Todd and Jordan Cardy, operating out of a dilapidated studio lock-up on a farm in Essex. The project commenced at the height of the first wave of lockdown, with the four members collaborating via Zoom.
5. Lowlife is a queencore/punk band out of Winnipeg, Canada. They are comprised of Brooke, Caitlin (also from Epirus and Co Komono), Anya and Meghan. Sometimes Zach from Co Komono/A Grizzly Fate plays guitar with them. They released their debut single, 'Nice Guys Finish Fast' in December of 2022 with Ian Ingram as producer/engineer.
Again and Again
Lowlife Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
How many more sleepless nights
must i pretend to sleep
how many more broken promises
must i pretend to keep
But maybe i have gone too far
too far into a dream
cause i don't know where to go
but i know where i have been
I know that i've beeen here before
i just can't remember when
no matter where i look
i see you again and again
But if there's no escape
surrender than i must
surrender to your wicked ways.
must i pretend to sleep
how many more broken promises
must i pretend to keep
But maybe i have gone too far
too far into a dream
cause i don't know where to go
I know that i've beeen here before
i just can't remember when
no matter where i look
i see you again and again
But if there's no escape
surrender than i must
surrender to your wicked ways.
In "Again and Again," Lowlife sings about the pain of trying to move on from a toxic relationship. The lyrics express frustration and confusion about how to break free from the cycle of broken promises and sleepless nights. The feeling of being trapped in a cycle of pain is communicated through the repetition of "again and again" and "I've been here before."
The singer acknowledges that they may be in over their heads, having delved too deep into a fantasy. Despite this, they can't forget about the past and the memories of the relationship keep haunting them, making it difficult to move on. The singer is resigned to the idea that they may never be able to escape the hold that the other person has over them.
The lyrics convey the sense of being trapped in a vicious cycle of emotional dependency, and that can be difficult to break. Lowlife communicates this feeling with raw honesty and emotion, making "Again and Again" a powerful and relatable expression of heartbreak and pain.
Line by Line Meaning
How many more sleepless nights
Expressing the feeling of discomfort caused by being unable to sleep frequently.
must i pretend to sleep
Avoiding the pain by pretending to be sleeping while being in a constant state of uneasiness.
how many more broken promises
Questioning the number of broken promises that have been made and left unfulfilled.
must i pretend to keep
Holding onto a promise that cannot be kept and maintaining the fake hope of it being fulfilled.
But maybe i have gone too far
Realizing that the situation has escalated to a point of no return.
too far into a dream
Being completely absorbed in a fantasy and losing touch with reality.
cause i don't know where to go
Feeling lost and unsure of a direction to proceed in.
but i know where i have been
Reflecting on past mistakes and experiences.
I know that i've been here before
Drawing from overlapping experiences of the past.
i just can't remember when
Unable to recall when it happened or the details associated with the experience.
no matter where i look
Not being able to escape from the memory.
i see you again and again
Being haunted by the constant presence of the memory.
But if there's no escape
Accepting the situation as one that is impossible to extricate from.
surrender than i must
Giving in to the circumstances and resigning oneself to accepting them.
surrender to your wicked ways.
Submitting to the forces causing the pain and allowing oneself to become a victim of them.
Writer(s): William Heggie, Craig Lorentson, Grant Mcdowall, Stuart Everest
Contributed by Mason Y. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
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