This song is based around a piano melody that I’ve had written for years – I’ve always intended to finish it and add a verse but it has only been the last couple of months that I’ve managed to find the extra lyrics to suit the melody and the correct chord progression to work with the chorus.

From its very start I’ve always wanted the song to be written from the point of view of person at breaking point – at a real low, and the chorus line has always been there. Look at me closely you can see, just how broken a man can be. It’s pretty basic in rhyme but in my head it counters nicely what comes before it in terms of the piano melody.

It was written on the same piano that we’ve used since the start of the band – an old school tinkler that just has something special about it. I’m quite sentimental when it comes to instruments and I love this piano to bits. I think that really helps the writing process when you just know how something should sound.

Lyrically, the song is about assisted suicide – something which has been in the news a lot recently. I heard an interview with a guy who talked about how he didn’t want to become defined by his illness: he didn’t like the idea that at some point he would cease to become himself and that that physical representation would overtake the image and memory of his being. He would lose control over how people would remember him, engage with him or even love him.

I often think about the idea of memories and about how they can sustain a person. Memories can bring about feelings that can be painful and wonderful but that ability to encapsulate feelings within them is powerful and pretty amazing really. So with this in mind I tried to write the song from the point of view of this man – broken and just ready to move on.

The song was recorded partly in Vale Studios in Worcestershire at the end of a long day of reamping guitars (Mickey and Matt’s favourite pastime) on the same piano that we used for Language is Over. We were really tired but managed to do four or five quick takes. I was very nervous while playing it as I hadn’t played the piano much and the weight of the keys was quite difficult to get adjusted to, plus I had no ending in mind so the last thirty seconds are pretty accidental J.

The vocals were then recorded in an attic in Hoult’s Yard whilst Mickey was having some family time. Luckily they turned out ok even though at one point I was singing into the wrong end of the mic….

Thanks to James Haselhurst for letting us use his lovely space.

The lyrics are as follows:

Maybe my hands won’t shake
Faces I don’t recall
Each of these finer points
Lost on the whitewashed walls
But at least it gets to be a choice

Look at me closely you can see
Just how broken a man can be

Assisted by those who know
The memories I used to be
Suffering grips all my days
Taut like an elegy

Look at me closely you can see
Just how broken a man can be

Still loss, still grief
Still a tragic energy
But I need control
Death will bring me
A calming neutrality
If you let me go
And make a choice

Look at me closely you can see
Just how broken a man can be