Our old drummer Greenie has got such a tremendous knowledge of music history and would always have great random facts and one he mentioned was that Rod Temperton \u2013 this really unassuming fantastic songwriter who wrote Thriller \u2013 came from Cleethorpes. I love this mental image as it defeats the picture in your head about the composition of that song. Plus he wasn\u2019t someone you had heard of unless you wanted to \u2013 it wasn\u2019t his bag, he just wrote songs \u2013 no bluster or bullshit. So I had this idea in my head.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Sometimes when we write songs I am in quite a dark place \u2013 I don\u2019t know why as I am quite a happy person but this song is a mixture of the two mindsets. I love the implausibility of life sometimes as it can give you great confidence \u2013 if you can be truly confused by a situation then there is no point worrying about factors that you can\u2019t control, you just need to deal with what is in front of you and not get disheartened or carried away with yourself. Haha, you know what is daft though \u2013 most people don\u2019t need to ruminate about this, they just know it. I need Rod Temperton\u2019s story to teach me about it. What a dafty.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I think this song is as true to the contents of my head as any song (except maybe Little Italy): it is me. We were writing it and the line came out of me (after the dark chords resolve) and Mickey was like \u201ceh? What are you on about?\u201d. I dismissed it for a bit as being too crazy a line: I mean firstly, he DOESN\u2019T live in Scarborough (at the time of writing the song Rod Temperton was still alive which was another weird aspect of the song which was finished and mixed almost on the same day of his death) and I DON\u2019T KNOW if he has a dog or has ever been to Whitby \u2013 but I thought it was ok to embellish massively because the image fitted perfectly what I wanted to say\u2026<\/p>\n
\u00a0When Mickey left me in the studio one day I did a demo of it with a keyboard and LOADS of harmonies and we both thought I had lost my mind but after a couple of days it had stuck and we knew it would be on the album.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Recording it was hard as we had to cut a lot of things from it to make room for drums and other sounds \u2013 peeling back the vocal layers was tough and it had a 30 second spoken word section which was just really crap haha \u2013 but I think sometimes you need to go there to come back in.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I think again, the accidental addendums really make the song \u2013 there is a transposed vocal part which sounds like a synth and an ad lib (haha ad lib, as if I do ad libs\u2026.) at the end that goes \u201cI don\u2019t want to go\u201d and I think at the time I really was sad about the idea of dying (as infantile as that sounds) or life moving forward \u2013 sometimes (especially as William grows up) I just want to pause time.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The whole process with this song was fluid, we never hit a wall with it \u2013 it just had flow and I think for that reason it is the one that I have the biggest soft spot for. It also has the air of total irreverence which is where I really am with song writing\u2026. I just don\u2019t mind if anyone likes it or not\u2026<\/p>\n
\u00a0So daft that I nearly reacted to the people with the manifold action who don\u2019t see life as a body of water so please bless me with a son or a daughter.<\/p>\n
\u00a0It is that complicated, simple and nonsensical all at the same time.<\/p>\n