This is one of those songs that doesn\u2019t really need a lyric blog because it lives in the Baked Bean aisle of Asda. I mean it is pretty basic \u2013 about four chords, quite a relaxed soundscape and an easy narrative without any peculiarity\u2026 but this was still a real challenge for us because we had to fight the urge to complicate it.<\/p>\n
When I first played the song to Mickey he liked the riff but didn\u2019t really get the chorus lyric \u201cas I ride across the M62 to get to you\u201d. I had originally just written it with an acoustic and that line popped into my head because I liked the way the t\u2019s rumbled into each other \u2013 the phrasing was quite nice. It was only after I explained to him the story of the song that he like it \u2013 person A gets up and travels to see person B, but upon arrival person A realises person B has done the same thing and so the journey has been fruitless. Alongside the idea of mentioning the towns and landmarks of the M62 along the way, he thought it was a good one to work on.<\/p>\n
It took a while to finish the lyrics as there is so much going on round and about this road \u2013 I wanted something that was accurate in geographical order but also reflected aspects of that journey and those towns and cities. I had to reject lots of lines about the isolated farm, Milnrow, Shaw, Rochdale etc etc.<\/p>\n
As you can imagine we have played many gigs over the years around the M62 and have travelled that road so many times \u2013 in summer, winter, autumn, spring; at day and night; in good times for the band and bad, plus we have an affinity with many of these places \u2013 the amazing people of Merseyside who remind us of home; the crowds and diverse audiences of Manchester who at first used to scare us with their apparent \u201cwe are Mancunian, what can you give us that we haven\u2019t already seen\u201d attitude (that we subsequently learnt was just pride in their amazingly creative city); Club NME in Oldham to 4 people; our two gigs in Huddersfield; discovering Bingley live; Leeds \u2013 possibly the best crowds in the UK; house parties in Pontefract; driving past the Goole water tower on the way to Hull with its cracking bridge (I love a good bridge), Howard Nicklas and venues like The Welly and Fruit.<\/p>\n
We have spent a lot of time on this road and it is in a way a homage to our travels and maybe a bit of a love song for this stretch of Northern England \u2013 it\u2019s proud, hard working, beautiful (in both an urban and rural sense), has true heritage but also dynamism.<\/p>\n
In terms of recording it we based a lot of it on the sound of the demo, keeping the original acoustic guitar as the base \u2013 it had such a good vibe to it that we didn\u2019t want to lose. As a template we used George Michael Faith, which is such a great sounding song \u2013 and ridiculously confident in its application of tone and parts. I don\u2019t think the idea was to get near it sonically but just to use its overall energy to capture something of our own.<\/p>\n
So it really is just a simple bash \u2013 I was a bit worried at first that it wasn\u2019t very \u201cLittle Comets\u201d \u2013 it doesn\u2019t really say anything about anything, but then I really told myself off for thinking that way. I mean it is just a song that we liked, recorded and shared with people. The simplicity of this statement is really what drove us before Little Comets, during Little Comets and will continue to sustain us long after it has gone.<\/p>\n