Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain

William and Jim Reid, brothers & founding members of The Jesus and Mary Chain—a band that bridged the gap between the punk explosion & the emergence of grunge & Britpop—chronicle the chaos, confusion, & stories behind their music.

For five years after they’d swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William & Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents’ East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn’t play in the same band because they’d argue too much, so they’d describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realized that these two perfect bands were actually the same band. The name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain.

The rest was not silence, & picking up those conversations again more than forty years later, William & Jim tell the full story of one of Britain’s greatest guitar bands for the very first time – a wildly funny & improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug & alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders & extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.

The working title for this book was ‘Never Understand’ – a great Mary Chain song everyone knows from 1984 – but as the writing process drew towards its conclusion, William suggested changing the title to ‘Never Understood’ – a great lesser known Mary Chain track from 1998; that switch is a perfect representation of the way this book blurs the line between the present & the distant & recent past, while illuminating hidden vistas of this band’s psychic hinterland. 

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Brothers William & Jim Reid are founding members of The Jesus & Mary Chain.

Ben Thompson is a critic, ghostwriter, & radio host.