Our Secrets Are The Same

Friendship & Fame at the Heart of Simple Minds

Author: Charles Burchill, Graeme Thomson and Jim Kerr

Paperback

Pre order release date
13th October 2025

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Pre order release date
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Paperback

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Description

Some Promised Land is the joint memoir by Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill, telling the inside story of one of Britain's most innovative, enduring and successful groups since the late 1970s. It is also a memoir of an extraordinary friendship. Jim and Charlie first met at the age of eight, when their families moved to the same housing estate in Toryglen, north Glasgow. More than half a century later, they live on the same street in Taormina, Sicily. In the decades between, their lives have been intimately entwined. It is the story of working class aspiration, social change, chemical awakenings, cultural infiltration and creative fusion.

Using key songs, places, years and events in the Simple Minds story, and told in the distinct voices of both men, Some Promised Land will trace the subtle calibrations of a bond which has experienced stratospheric success and humbling lows with Simple Minds, as well as marriages and divorces, fatherhood (and, latterly, grandfather-hood), loss, inter-band tensions, power dynamics and the occasional explosive bust up.

About the Author

Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill formed Simple Minds in 1977 and have been the band's only original members and core songwriters throughout its 46-year history. One of the biggest, most influential, eclectic and pioneering groups of the past half century, Simple Minds emerged from Glasgow's post-punk scene, transitioning from restless art-rockers to electro futurists and passionate pop contenders before becoming, finally, a global rock behemoth. Their critically acclaimed run of records between 1979 and 1985 are cited as a key influences by artists as diverse as Primal Scream, Mogwai, Manic Street Preachers, Moby, Peter Gabriel, Horrors and Chvrches. Their numerous global hits include 'Alive And Kicking', 'Promised You A Miracle', 'Waterfront', '(Don't You) Forget About Me', 'Belfast Child', 'Sanctify Yourself', 'She's A River' and 'Let There Be Love'.