‘I’d pretty much forgotten about the song until I got a call to say George Clooney liked it. I had to sit down’
A Scots musician has been handed his best ever Christmas present after hearing one of his old songs has been given a starring role in George Clooney’s new film.
Ian Donaldson, 64, said he is pinching himself after the Hollywood superstar handpicked his track Until Life Turns Your Way Again for the upcoming sports drama The Boys In The Boat, which Clooney directs.
The movie, starring Joel Edgerton and Callum Turner, is tipped to be a worldwide box office smash when it launches next month.
Donaldson was last in the pop charts 40 years ago as frontman with Glasgow group H20.
The band’s biggest hit I Dream To Sleep made the Top 20 in 1983 but they had split up within two years.
Now the singer has been given a late career boost by Clooney. The actor and director has snapped up an unknown song that featured on Donaldson’s 2018 solo album From Stars We Came after deeming it perfect for a scene in the 1936 Olympics film.
“I had pretty much forgotten about the song until I got a call from a publisher in America a few weeks ago to say that George Clooney had heard it, really liked it, and wanted to use it in his new film,” Donaldson said.
“I had to sit down for half an hour afterwards to take it all in.
“I was told that George had chosen the song himself, which is some compliment.” Donaldson said he had written Until Life Turns Your Way Again more than 30 years ago but in 2018 he had signed a one-off publishing deal for the track with California-based firm Black Toast Music which specialises in placing songs in TV shows, films and adverts. “The boss of the company had contacted me to say that he particularly liked that one song that was on my solo album and said he felt he could find a home for it,” Donaldson told The Sunday Post.
“I did a deal with him for that tune alone and thought no more about it. I couldn’t believe it when five years later I got a call out of the blue from him to tell me he had indeed finally found a home for the track and it was going to be in the new Clooney movie.
“That is some surprise Christmas present to get and i expect i could be info ra bit of a windfall.” Dad-of-one Donaldson admitted that the timing couldn’t be better as he is planning a new solo album and a tour for next year.
He is also hatching two follow-up books to his well-received debut novel A Rainbow in the basement.
In recent years he has also rekindled a musical relationship with legendary Scots record company boss Alan Mcgee, who he co-fou nd edh 20 within the late 1970s, along with Primal Scream guitarist Andrew Innes.
Mcgee, who was then a bass player, left the band and moved to London to start his own company, Creation Records, and missed out on the early 80s success of I Dream To Sleep and a follow up single Just Outside Of Heaven, which just scraped into the Top 40.
“Alan got back in touch a few years ago when I recorded my first solo record and he said he wanted to help. “Basically, he said ‘you make the records and I’ll put them out’.
“He is always reminding me that I first had success before him and as soon as he heard about the Clooney movie he was in touch to congratulate me.” After H20 disbanded in the mid-1980s, Donaldson said he became a recluse for a few years before eventually re-emerging to run his own recording studio in Glasgow, write books and make solo records.
The Boys In The Boat tells the true tale of eight poor and working-class University of Washington rowers who defied the odds and won the gold medal at the 1936 Olympics, defeating Germany in front of Hitler.
Director Clooney has said of the movie that the appeal of an underdog story is universal.
“I think everybody considers themselves an underdog,” Clooney said. “I’ve met really rich, successful people who were like, ‘Yeah, we barely made it through on that one.’ I think everybody, in their heart, thinks of themselves as one.
“I think we like these stories because most of the time, we’ve seen that it doesn’t work out, so when they do work out, we enjoy them and look forward to them.”
He added: “Sports movies and war films, in particular, do that really well. People don’t love to watch A Bridge Too Far and see everybody lose at the end.”
Donaldson, however, said that he has asked not to be told any details of the scene in The Boys In The Boat that features his song until he sees it himself when the film is released next month. The movie had its world premiere in Los Angeles on December 11 and hits British screens on January 12.
“I’ll go and see it at the local cinema along with my wife and daughter and I want it to be a nice surprise for us all,” Donaldson added.