Maybe we were young and stupid but 30 years ago we took it for granted. We don’t now

in LA Weekly (the influential US entertainment newspaper), which we couldn’t believe.”

The album is the group’s fourth in the last eight years, during which time they have formed a key relationship with producer Paul Savage at the Chem 19 recording studios in Lanarkshire. While Savage was involved in the mixing of City Of Love, it was produced by front man Ricky Ross and guitarist Gregor Philp themselves at Gorbals Sound in Glasgow.

The recording location had special resonance for Lorraine, whose Donegal family came to live in the area, and who spent teenage days running around its streets. She said: “I was visiting one of my friends I used to stay with in the

Gorbals recently. She still lives in an original Gorbals tenement, and her mum is from the same tiny place in Ireland that my mum was from. She recalled how I always wanted all this exciting stuff to happen when I came there.

“There was a day when we were crossing one of the bridges over the Clyde and someone got mugged. My friend’s response was to run off, my response was to chase after the mugger. There were detectives and police and I thought it was all fantastic.”

And while the album was written last year, its themes have taken on an unforeseen significance.

Lorraine, 55, said: “It’s a hopeful record with a lot of love and joy on it. Someone said it should be prescribed for people going into isolation, which was a kind thing to say.” Husband Ricky, 63, added: “I love Jimmy Webb’s story about going to give songs to Frank Sinatra as a young man.

“He goes to ring the doorbell, and there’s a wee sign there which says, ‘ You better have a good goddam reason for ringing this’.

“That should be written large to people like me: you better have a good goddam reason to make another record. As you get old, really old, you question whether you’ll have the energy to make another one.

“It’s a huge thing, you’re pulling something out of yourself, pulling something up a hill. But I described it to one of my pals recently as the album I’ve been wanting to make all my life. And it is.”

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