2011 sees the thirtieth anniversary of The Blue Nile's formation in Glasgow. Four albums – containing a total of just 33 songs – have followed, at a glacial pace. The band's melancholy, romantic songs about ordinary people have attracted a fanatical fan base – one that includes musicians such as Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel and Rickie Lee Jones. Through the highest acclaim, record company ineptitude, painstaking recording and personal disasters, The Blue Nile have wound a strange course. Allan Brown, a fan of the band from the start and friend of the band's composer Paul Buchanan, gets behind the veil to analyse the band through personal memoir, critical study, access to unreleased recordings and encounters with those who have been central to the strange and elusive mythology of The Blue Nile.