‘I skip one part when we perform it these days. As I’m in my mid-50s it would be creepy’
Having made two albums with a chamber vibe, I was thinking, “Where do I go from here?” I started hearing your Suedes and Saint Etiennes, and Blur were referencing stuff from the 60s and 70s too. I could see the way the wind was blowing. That sounds quite knowing, but I already loved John Barry, the Kinks, Adam Faith and, of course, Scott Walker.
I’d come up with a very eurocentric chord sequence, not the type you get in rock’n’roll, almost slightly Pet Shop Boys. Watching the 1995 adaptation of Cold Comfort Farm, I noticed that the grandmother’s repeated line, “There’s something in the woodshed,” scanned with the tune I was writing.
The conversation between the woman in the song and the would-be Lothario evolved from that line. Of course, the guy gets his comeuppance, because that’s how my mind works. He goes down to the woodshed and the woman’s heavies assault and rob him. It was all a ruse.
I returned to my favourite galloping snare drum groove, which had worked well on the last song of the previous album. That had been inspired by a documentary featuring Eurovision songs from the 60s, which included a clip of France Gall singing Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son for Luxembourg. I thought, “That’s the best sound I’ve ever heard!” In those days it was harder to find a song again so I was working from memory. The engineer, Darren Allison, played the drum part and I had to fit everything else over the top as tightly as I could.
