Our Secrets Are The Same
Friendship & Fame at the Heart of Simple Minds
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Our Secrets Are The Same
Narrated by:
Derek Riddell, Norman Bowman
Buy Now for £17.94
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Narrated by:
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Derek Riddell
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Norman Bowman
Summary
'Brilliantly entertaining' MOJO
'A rollercoaster tale' Classic Pop
'Endlessly vivid' i Paper
'A beautifully candid bromance . . . the shared vision and the strength of their bond is palpable on every page of a book that even casual fans should devour' Record Collector
'A bruised but brilliant story' God Is in the TV
'Burchill and Kerr take it in turns to tell the story of the band and the story of their friendship. The result feels very Simple Minds, full of ambition, steeliness and proper humour' Herald, Music Books of the Year 2025
The long-awaited memoir from Simple Minds' founder members and lifelong collaborators, Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill
A candid, moving and kinetic story of self-realisation through the power of music, Our Secrets Are The Same is the remarkable joint memoir by Simple Minds' founder members, Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill. It not only reveals the inner workings of one of the most innovative and successful British bands of the past half-century, but the deeply personal tale of an extraordinary friendship which powered teenage dreams into visionary action.
Exploring key songs, places, years and events in the Simple Minds story, and told in the distinct voices of both men, Our Secrets Are The Same explores a bond which has encompassed stratospheric highs and humbling lows, marriages and divorces, fatherhood, fickle fame, tricky inter-band dynamics, the occasional explosive bust up, and a ruthless streak to rival the Sicilian Mafia.
Their connection is grounded in shared experiences and a set of values and codes so deeply ingrained they don't need to be spoken. For Our Secrets Are The Same is not just the story of two rock stars, but of two sons, brothers, partners and parents who have never forgotten where they come from. Two men who have remained deeply bonded to their roots and each other, while fulfilling a teenage dream to form a world-class live band and take their music around the globe.
Fascinating and funny, evocative and inspiring, this unforgettable memoir captures a unique journey through life and music, and a friendship like no other.©2025 Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill and Graeme Thomson
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Critic reviews
Brilliantly entertaining
A rollercoaster tale
Endlessly vivid
A beautifully candid bromance . . . the shared vision and the strength of their bond is palpable on every page of a book that even casual fans should devour
A bruised but brilliant story
Full of ambition, steeliness and proper humour
Life is never simple for anyone
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As a memoir of the enduring friendship between Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill, the book certainly has value. Their shared history is remarkable and their loyalty to one another over more than half a century is genuine. Both are immensely talented people in their own right, and they come across, for the most part, as decent and thoughtful men. So I am grateful to them for sharing their story, particularly their reflections on fame and friendship.
My difficulty is with the suggestion, implicit in both the book and its title, that these two men were the heart of Simple Minds.
For me, that substantially rewrites what made Simple Minds such an extraordinary band.
The Simple Minds that produced that unique succession of records culminating in "New Gold Dream: was a collective. Derek Forbes' sublime basslines, Mick MacNeil's keyboards and compositions, Brian McGee's contribution to the formative albums, and later Mel Gaynor's immense drumming were not peripheral decorations around Kerr and Burchill. They were fundamental components of the sound itself.
Listen to those recordings again and imagine removing Forbes' bass or MacNeil's keyboards. What remains simply isn't the same band that many of us grew to love.
That is why I found parts of this memoir frustratingly self-serving. We are inevitably hearing history through the perspective of the two people who ultimately retained control of the Simple Minds name. Other members appear and disappear through a story whose centre of gravity remains firmly fixed on Kerr and Burchill. Their perspective is perfectly legitimate, and I thank them for giving it to us, but it is still a perspective rather than an objective account, and in my view they do not, by themselves, represent the "heart of Simple Minds."
Perhaps the book would have worked better for me had it embraced that distinction more explicitly. This is a fascinating story of Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill and their remarkable friendship. It should not, however, be mistaken for the definitive story of the creative heart of Simple Minds.
There is also another, perhaps more interesting, story beneath the surface: how did such an extraordinarily creative collective gradually come apart?
I suspect the answer may lie in the human frailties that have fractured so many great bands: ego, ambition, money, resentment, pride and, perhaps, hubris. Success changes relationships and alters the balance of power within a group. People who once struggled together as equals can gradually acquire very different ideas about contribution, ownership and entitlement. That is not a uniquely Simple Minds story.
Indeed, the book left me thinking again about something I have often wondered. As the people responsible for so much of that distinctive sound gradually departed, perhaps there came a point when Kerr and Burchill should have considered whether continuing under the Simple Minds name still accurately represented what the band had once been. I certainly think the subtitle of this book should have been worded differently.
They unquestionably carried the name forward, and their subsequent longevity and success deserve acknowledgement. But carrying the name forward is not quite the same thing as having created the music that made the name matter so much to so many of us.
For me, the great Simple Minds were a band in the fullest meaning of that word: a remarkable collision of brilliant personalities and musicians whose individual talents combined to produce something none of them could have created alone.
Perhaps that is the paradox at the heart of this book. Kerr and Burchill's friendship survived when the collective around them did not. That survival is an extraordinary story and one worth telling. But the friendship that sustained Simple Minds should not retrospectively become the story of the band that created its greatest music.
That collective achievement deserves more acknowledgement than I felt it received here.
The Secret Is That It Was Never Just Two People
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