Echo & The Bunnymen to issue expanded edition of 1999's 'What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?’ on CD and LP debut in November

A quarter century since its first release, London Records are set to reissue Echo & The Bunnymen’s album ‘What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?’ on vinyl for the first time on November 29, both on crystal clear vinyl and on limited edition rust orange vinyl.

Fully remastered, the 1999 album will also be reissued on a 34-track double CD edition featuring B-sides, alternative takes and live versions of Bunnymen classics and tracks from the album.

‘What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?’ is the eighth studio album by the Liverpool band and the follow-up to their 1997 comeback album ‘Evergreen’, which saw original Bunnymen members Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant and Les Pattison reunite in the studio for the first time in almost a decade.

Continuing the trajectory set with ‘Evergreen’, the songs from ‘What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?’ feature strings performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra.

Speaking in 1999 about the album’s organic approach McCulloch states: “After ‘Evergreen’ I was writing all this kind of stuff, and I thought, we're just going to go in there, and half of it will be very song-orientated, and the other will be ‘Heaven Up Here.’”

“The title ‘What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?’ is more of an eternal question than where do we come from? It's where the sod are we going to go? It dawned on me that I can write these words that don't go above people's heads. It wasn't like ‘I'm going to simplify lyrics,’ it's just I felt confident of who I am.”

“My solo period was kind of learning that I don't write abstract lyrics very well and never really did. It's still, for me, the Leonard Cohens and the John Lennon’s… It's like, how much simpler can you get than that? But it's one of the most poetic things I've ever heard in a song, because it resonates, and you know exactly what he's on about.”

The album features a final turn on bass on “Fools Like Us” from Les Pattison, who would leave the band in 1998, and guests Fun Lovin’ Criminals, who provide horns on “Get in the Car” and “When It All Blows Over”.

‘What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?’ featured two singles, “Get in The Car” and fan favourite “Rust’”, which was an NME Single Of The Week and the band’s final UK Top 40 hit.

The band would tour extensively in 1999 in support of the album, and the expanded 2CD edition features previously unreleased live tracks from shows of the time including The Improv Theatre in London (recorded for Radio One’s John Peel Show) and Cream in Liverpool, including Bunnymen classics ‘The Killing Moon’, ‘Lips Like Sugar’, ‘Back Of Love’ and ‘The Cutter’.

Track listings:

2CD:

Disc 1

1 What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?

2 Rust
3 Get In The Car
4 Baby Rain
5 History Chimes
6 Lost On You
7 Morning Sun
8 When It All Blows Over
9 Fools Like Us
10 The Fish Hook Girl *
11 See The Horizon *
12 Sense Of A Life **
13 Beyond The Green **
14 The Wood +
15 Rust (Video Edit)
16 Fools Like Us (Alternate Extended Mix) +
17 Baby Rain (Alternative Mix 1) +
18 History Chimes (Piano and Guitar Version) +

Disc 2:

1 What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? (Radio Edit) +

2 Get In The Car (Radio Edit) ++
3 Top Of The World (Band Version) +
4 Rust (Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999) +
5 Fools Like Us (Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999) +
6 Baby Rain (Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999) +
7 What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? (Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999)+
8 All That Jazz (Live At Cream, Liverpool, 1997) +
9 Back Of Love (Live At Cream, Liverpool, 1997) +
10 People Are Strange (Live At Cream, Liverpool, 1997) +
11 The Cutter (Live At Cream, Liverpool, 1997) +
12 Lips Like Sugar (Live At Cream, Liverpool, 1997) +
13 Over The Wall (Live At Cream, Liverpool, 1997) +
14 Do It Clean Medley (Live At Cream, 1997) +
15 The Killing Moon (Live At Cream, 1997) +
16 Rust (BBC Radio 1 - Live Lounge, 1999)

* From Rust CD Single 1

** From Rust CD SIngle 2
+ previously unreleased
++ from Get in The Car CD Single