Editing Espedair Street (section)

==Plot summary==

{{blockquote|Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond [[Iona]] (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with [[Staffa]]’s six-sided columns and [[Fingal's Cave]]; or I might head south to [[Gulf of Corryvreckan|Corryvreckan]], to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed.}}
{{blockquote|Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. just to try and explain.}}

Weird starts out in the Ferguslie Park area of [[Paisley, Renfrewshire|Paisley]] in a very underprivileged [[Catholic]] family. He is impressed by a group named '''Frozen Gold''' when he sees them live, in the Union of [[University of Paisley|Paisley College of Technology]], and auditions with them. Christine Brice likes his songs, and he joins the band. He ends up writing all their material and playing bass guitar (after trying unsuccessfully to get them to change their name), as the band rises in the [[Psychoactive drug|drug]]- and [[Alcoholic beverage|booze]]-fuelled rock and roll of the 1970s, assisted by [[A&R]] man Rick Tumber of ARC Records. In the '''Three Chimneys tour''', singer Davey Balfour takes Dan along on an attempt to break an unofficial (and illegal) speed record for flying around three power station chimneys in [[Kent]] in his private [[aeroplane]].

He reminisces about this from 1980s [[Glasgow]], where he lives as a recluse in a Victorian [[folly]] (St Jutes), ever since the tragic events which led to the demise of the band. He is posing as his own caretaker, and his friends McCann and Wee Tommy know him as Jimmy Hay. After a memorable fight in a nightclub called 'Monty's', his real identity is revealed. He has grown uncomfortable with fame and wealth, and eventually visits his first girlfriend, Jean Webb, now living in [[Arisaig]].