about the songs
with dean & abby
everybody wants to take you home (manning)
dean: "I met someone and she was pretty messed up. I had to bow out gracefully and this was as graceful as I could be."
abby: "I love the percussion. We ended up using the board mix 'cause it's full of ghosts, these unexplained sounds we can't even remember how we made."
alaska (manning)
d: "A straight narrative, written in a shack in the mountains in winter. Wet wood, couldn't get the fire going... Jack London-inspired, of course."
a: "I used to play (Lou Reed's) Caroline Says over and over again when I was learning guitar. I'm sure Alaska is informed by that, but not consciously."
let me come over (manning)
d: "Uh... one sided-love is not really a good thing, I guess."
a: "That's one of my favourite songs. Towards the end it became apparent to me I was singing it to myself, to another part of myself."
oh yeh (manning)
d: "'When it all comes down to dust, who will you satisfy?' I think that could be the theme of the record. What are you in it for?"
a: "'Oh Yeh' sums up Open Sesame: 'I have one foot on the shore and one foot in the sea'; the two-headed boy on the cover... it's about duality, trying to balance."
begging bowl (dobson)
d: "Abby at her majestic best. She had the music for a year and procrastinated for as long as she could. It was worth the wait. It's divine."
a: "I absolutely love it and the string arrangement is amazing but it actually kinda hurts to sing it live. Emotionally and vocally it's a real challenge."
dreamship (manning)
D: "I like it 'cause it's a great little love song. There's no undercurrent there. Everything else seems to have a rip under it. This one is clear sea."
A: "Dean obviously wrote it as 'There's a girl, she really turns my world' and I was gonna sing it like that but our gay audience is quite big enough already. The only voices that yell out 'We love you Abby!' are female."
sleepyhead (manning)
d: "The first line was originally 'We don't sound like everybody, that's why they won't play us on the radio'. Then 'Sleeping' went to high rotation so I had to change the first line."
a: "Sleepyhead is two sentiments in one song. It goes from aggro to really gentle and lulling. As a band it's one of our best performances I think, cause of its dynamic range."
blue gone green (manning)
d: "It reminds me of winter in Melbourne: raining, trams rattling by. I got the name out of a second hand guitar brochure: 'Fender Stratocaster, blue gone green'."
a: "I see a landscape. A tumbleweeds-y desert town. It's dusty and it's in slow motion."
that boy (manning)
d: "Basically verbatim from a letter a friend sent me. She also inspired 'Titanic' from Angel Blood. She lives in New York and she writes great letters."
a: "We re-recorded that a few times. Initially it was really '80s pop. I love the words 'cause everybody knows people like that boy."
i'll believe you (manning)
d: "The oldest song on the record. It's not the sort of song I could ever write now. There's so much innocence there. That sounds terrible doesn't it?"
a: "It's a really private moment. I often have to close my eyes for that song, then when I open my eyes and see the audience it's like, My God! Like that dream where you forgot to wear your underpants to school."
sonic (manning)
d: "Sonic I liken to arriving at a party very drunk. But it's OK 'cause there's friends there."
a: "It's great fun; I love it. It's the only song
we play that you could vaguely consider moshing to."
i love you honey but the season is over
(manning)
d: "We went on tour with the Badloves and Chris Wilson and we all became really tight. Then it was over. It was like leaving the circus."
a: "The end of something wonderful. I often don't take songs literally. It's more like Dean's words have a hue or a colour. This one's blue." |