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The Waterboys have been through many changes, from the early struggles common to most bands, through an anthemic era known as their "Big Music" stage to a more folkier "raggle-taggle" middle age and now languish in a state of laid back spirituality where quantity is far less important that quality. Always based around Mike Scott, band has always remained fluid and the coming and going of band members must have influenced the changes in style.

Mike Scott, the founder and only permanent member of The Waterboys, made a number of solo recordings in late 1981 and early 1982 while in a band named Another Pretty Face These sessions at Redshop Studio are the earliest recordings that would be released under the The Waterboys name. During the same period, Scott formed the short-lived band The Red and the Black, with saxophone player Anthony Thistlethwaite, after hearing him play on Waiting on Egypt, a Nikki Sudden album. The Red and the Black performed nine concerts in London during which time Thistlethwaite introduced Scott to drummer Kevin Wilkinson, who joined The Red and the Black. During 1982, Scott made a number of recordings, both solo and with Thistlethwaite and Wilkinson. These recording sessions, both of Scott's solo work and the group performances would later be divided between The Waterboys' first and second albums. In 1983, even though Scott's record label, Ensign Records, expected his first album to be a solo effort, Scott decided to start a new band. He chose The Waterboys as its name from a line in the Lou Reed song "The Kids" on the album Berlin.

The eponymous first album, and the band itself, was compared to U2 for the cinematic and anthem like sweep of their music, but in many peoples opinion, mine included, the band really found their feet on this their second album "A Pagan Place". By now Karl Wallinger, later to form World Party, was on board to play bass and keyboards and Scott found himself at the head of a talented bunch of journeyman musicians. The scene was set for "the difficult second album."

"Church Not Made With Hands" opens the album, a strummed twelve string guitar leading the way to be joined first by the drums and then by a keyboard riff that is vaguely reminiscent of the theme from Dallas, a bit of a worry but soon eclipsed by Scotts voice. This very positive sounding and up beat music is a testament to the outdoors, the imagery in the lyrics emphasising that the sun above us is the centre of our existence and the earth the temple from

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