Shamrock Diaries

 ( Chris Rea Albums ) 

Rea told Q magazine that he wrote "Steel River" after returning to Middlesbrough "to see me father after me mother died, and they had knocked the whole place down. I'd been gone three years, hard touring in Europe, I literally went to drive somewhere that wasn't there. It was like a sci-fi movie. That's when I wrote Steel River. The Middlesbrough I knew, it's as if there was a war there 10 years ago." "Chisel Hill" refers to a house Rea bought in the vicinity of Roseberry Topping, which lies just south of Middlesbrough, and has a distinctive half-cone shaped summit. Rea says that the song "can make me cry quite easily... We'd reached the point where we'd bought a house, I had a child, we were happy. We'd kept the wolf from the door and things were okay... I wrote that song all in one quick go... whoever wrote that song back then, he must have been a really happy guy. Yeah, that song gets me." "You're looking back at yourself", he said, "remembering what you thought was going to happen, and then what actually happened... I definitely should have stayed in Chisel Hill, without a doubt!"

Irish folk singer Dolores Keane covered "One Golden Rule" on her 1989 album Lion in a Cage.

In 2024, demos from Swedish singer Frida's second English language solo album, Shine leaked on the internet, and one of these demos was "Love Turns to Lies".

1. "Steel River" – 6:15
2. "Stainsby Girls" – 3:51
3. "Chisel Hill" – 4:03
4. "Josephine" – 4:26 (3:56 in later pressings)
5. "One Golden Rule" – 4:29
6. "All Summer Long" – 4:09
7. "Stone" – 4:23
8. "Shamrock Diaries" – 4:55
9. "Love Turns to Lies" – 4:11
10. "Hired Gun" – 8:03

1. "Stainsby Girls" b/w "And When She Smiles", "Sunrise", "Dancing Shoes", "September Blue"
2. "Josephine" b/w "Josephine (Remix)", "Everytime It Rains"

• Chris Rea – vocals, Electric organ, synthesizers, guitars, slide guitar
• Kevin Leach – keyboards, grand piano, Rhodes piano
• Max Middleton – keyboards, grand piano, Rhodes
• Robert Ahwai – additional rhythm guitars
• Simon Nicol – additional rhythm guitars
• Eoghan O'Neill – bass
• Dave Mattacks – drums
• Adrian Rea – drums
• Martin Ditcham – percussion
• Mel Collins – saxophone
• Annie Whitehead – trombone
• The Sultanas (Ian Barnett, Donnie Hilstad, Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison) – backing vocals

• Chris Rea – producer
• David Richards – producer, engineer
• Barry Hammond – engineer
• Bil Smith – cover artwork
• Derek Ridgers – photography