A song for Christmas, not written and performed by The Fleas, but by Piers, who is in the band. Merry Christmas, one and all.

December

This song began life on a long road trip through France in a VW camper van. The chevrons on the road made a rhythm and the guitar riff grew out of that, Piers playing in the passenger seat as Bernadette drove. The song evolved into a resume of the singer’s work history to date, illustrating a clear and protracted failure to launch on his part that continues to this day.

Dressed as Food is all about the world of work, which is, for most of us, a completely stupid, humiliating waste of time.

Square Peg

Dressed As Food

The vocal rhythm to OK Hello was inspired by the theme tune from Are You Being Served?( “Ground floor: Perfumery, stationary, and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food. Going up...”)

But the lyrical content for each verse came entirely from headings taken verbatim from different gossip and fashion magazines. With a little David Bowie style cutting and pasting, these headings came magically together to create the story of a young female wannabe, sung by Bernadette.

OK Hello

Every now and then, we get approached by twitchy people who say they’re from ‘The Music Industry’, whatever that is. They make us an offer, which never sounds good. But we always listen politely.

Then they send us send us a contract, setting down in writing just how bad the offer is. When we question the terms, these people often say the same thing: “100% of nothing is nothing”.

What they mean is that beggars can’t be choosers.

They think that, because we make music, we are begging for fame. It’s all a bit awkward. Because we aren’t begging for anything.

This song is about decision-making, choosing when to embrace change and when to just hang on to yourself instead.

It also features Maddie Cottam on the trumpet.

100% Of Nothing

As well as stealing from Robert Frost, this song is about the patience of women, the impetuousness of men and the foolishness of people from The South. Bernadette is a bear. This is a song of love and thanks to her.

Ursa Minor

A blues jam for the modern world, borrowing heavily on the groove from Amerie’s One Thing and charting the way to hell in a handcart

Bernadette sings lead vocals here in a concise 3 minute, 28 second state-of-the-nation address, covering a lot of controversial ground in the process.

Why Am I Surprised

As Louis Armstrong noted, “There’s only two kinds of music: Good music and bad music”. But what makes good music? Honesty of course.

Any song that speaks its truth will land in the heart. Most songs are just fake feelings, production trickery or sex worker grooves. But every year a couple of tracks still get through. And the one thing these songs all have in common, whatever their subject matter, is their truth.

Something Honest

Force 9 refers to The Beaufort Scale, which measures wind speed according to simple markers from the natural world. The scale measures from absolute stillness at Force 1, to building collapse at Force 12. 

At 9, winds are gale force, causing structural damage on land and big swells on the water. You wouldn’t want to be at sea in a Force 9 gale.

This is a song about who you lean on when the storm hits.

Force 9

Push is inspired by a classic high concept film starring Charlton Heston called Soylent Green. In Soylent Green, the government murders undesirables, turning them into food to feed the masses and prevent rioting.

Anyone who has to commute to work feels the odd flash of anger at other passengers. Getting on a bus one morning, someone pushed in front of us, telling some story into her mobile, with her every sentence starting “…and I was like/and she was like”. Annoying.

It felt like the only possible use for this person would be as some sort of food product. Keep people fat enough and stupid enough so that, when the system collapses, they can be farmed for their protein by the authorities.

So we wrote “Push”. Pretty dark.

Push

This song wrote itself in about three sessions, with a little help from former Fleas guitarist, Rico Pieroni, who came up with the sweet chords for the chorus.

Can’t Give My Love Away also marked the first time we were joined by our new brass section, William Lewis (saxophone) and Oli Wyatt (trumpet) in the recording studio. Writing and arranging parts for brass was a whole new shebang and we’re delighted with how it all worked out, the boys giving the song huge extra groove and punch and blending so well with the vocals.

Can't Give My Love Away

Many songs create characters to draw you in and tell a story. 

Traditional narratives of troubled children normally portray a wayward son that Just Won’t Listen. I thought it would be interesting to reverse that and have a daughter, and to sing from the viewpoint of a brother worried for her.

And so this character emerged, part Bladerunner replicant, part Wind-up Girl, who just ‘keeps on running’, unable to face the demons of her past.

It was also a good opportunity to give Mannie a really hard time playing drum & bass beats at 135bpm. Well, the boy needs the exercise…

Sister

Infectious indie rock and roll for every occasion

The Fleas

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