The Take Off and Landing of Everything
Track By Track
Hello everyone. Thanks for listening. Here are some brief notes on our sixth studio album, The Take Off and Landing of Everything. It was written and recorded in Salford, New York and Wiltshire over the last two years and we’re very proud of it. The main things that have informed the songs are a deliberate change in the way the band work together, our not having performed for eighteen months, (the first break from live shows in twenty one years), and my hopping between New York and Manchester, essentially making Green Point, Brooklyn my second home. Add to that some of the big and little, positive and negative, life experiences that any group of men approaching forty can expect and the result is an initially dense but, we think, rewarding listen. In fact, we think it’s our best work. Hope you enjoy it. Guy x
“This Blue World”
The "meant to be’ feelings of new love. The promise to return to a past love and ultimately the admission that love isn’t always enough to keep two people together. Big ideas bouncing around somewhere between a breathless hello and the fondest farewell. Always our first choice to open the album. The warm organ sound that appears in the second part of the song is a 1960’s Philicorder. It appears on most of the songs on the record and is I think one of the album’s signature sounds.
“Charge”
An old man in a young bar bitterly ranting but actually lonely. Starring a large section of the amazing Hallé orchestra, Manchester’s oldest band.
“Fly Boy Blue / Lunette”
I mentioned we’ve changed the way we work. I voiced a documentary on The Beatles White Album for Radio 2 that included an interview with one of the staff at Abbey Road. They stated that towards the end of the band if any three members were working together the music would flow and the work ethic was as strong as it always had been but if all four Beatles got together an air of despondency would descend and the wheels would stop turning. I’m no stranger to group dynamics being one of seven kids and I took the idea of having different days off from one another to the band. Not that we hit any kind of creative wall but we wanted to see what the different combinations of elbow members would throw up.
Before Craig and I joined the band the others were called RPM (Richard, Peter, Mark. Cute eh?!). Musically this is what happens when the three are left to their own devices. We were lucky to be joined by the amazing Pete McPhail on sax who Craig and I first worked with when producing I Am Kloot. “Fly Boy Blue” is a fractured account of the crazy stresses and joys of international air travel and returning home after a long stay away. There is plenty to be proud of in the UK but there is also plenty to be ashamed / fearful of and coming home has at times been a bitter sweet experience.
“Lunette” means ‘little moon’ and in this context refers to the semicircle at the bottom of a woman’s hairline. Unfortunately it is also the brand name of a ‘menstruation cup’, an item none of us knew existed at the time of writing the song and the reason that it’s not the album title. Lyrically a straight up, first draft diary entry. Pretty much a live take musically. Long live R.P.M.
“New York Morning”
Another first draft diary entry written at 6am in the Moonstruck Diner in Manhattan. John Lennon in his final British press conference stated that He and his true love were moving to New York because it was “The modern Rome” and also because the British press had been so unkind to Yoko Ono, racist in fact. I felt a little national guilt when I heard that. New York embraced the couple proudly and their image is everywhere. They were on my mind that morning. So too were the construction workers and maintenance men and women of the city who keep its really quite fragile infrastructure ticking. They are given the same respect and status as emergency services personnel. New York is very proud of its work ethic. Something I’ve always loved about Manchester too. Jimi Goodwin joined the choir on this one.
“Real Life (Angel)”
Craig wrote the music to this one. Being powerless to help a heartbroken friend tells you how much they mean to you. One of my oldest mates “danced away the heartache”. The second appearance of the Hallé. It is quite extraordinary to have musicians of that calibre playing your arrangements, ridiculous in fact. And we finished half an hour early which meant I could drag them to the pub for one. Love ‘em we do.
“Honey Sun”
Mark wrote and recorded the music at home using a Rhythm Ace vintage drum machine inspired by our love of the JJ Cale album, ‘Naturally’. Lyrically, sometimes the only way to deal with heartache is to run away for a bit. It’s not a long term solution though. I love the idea of being a human cannonball but I’ve never found a helmet that fits.
“My Sad Captains”
One of my running themes for the last two elbow records has been getting older and I’ve written a love song to my friends on every record. This is both. Most people have lost somebody by the time they hit 40 and mine stay very much in my mind. But I also wrote this for the ones I don’t see just because life has taken them somewhere else. Shakespeare of course put it better than anyone so I nicked that. I also paraphrase William Penn. When short of a chorus, steal profundities from the best. The brass was supplied by the wonderful Tim Barber (making his second appearance on one of our records), Bob Marsh, who is another Klootie contact, and the lovely Kat Curlett who as well as being in the Hallé is my trumpet tutor. You lot won’t hear me play anything other than the one note at the beginning of ‘Starlings’ for at least a decade but my instrument has superseded my BBC security pass as my favourite object in the world.
‘Let's have one other gaudy night: call to me
All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;
Let's mock the midnight bell.’ William Shakespeare. From ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’
“I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” William Penn
“Colour Fields”
Our Peter using apps on an iPad. It’s good that one of us is staying abreast of new technology. I still call the radio a wireless and iPods Walkmans.
Somebody close to me was a very bright kid and bullied for it. I wish I could go back in time and rescue her. If this clicks with anyone in a similar position that is the next best thing. I’ve said it before but school is absolutely not ‘the best years of your life.’ Mine wasn’t a bad school, in fact it was quite a good one, but I don’t feel life began “til the gate clanged shut behind me.
“The Take Off and Landing of Everything”
If love between two people has mutual respect and admiration at its foundations it will never be a regret however sad its end.
“The Blanket of Night”
A portrait of a man and wife risking everything trying to improve their lot by illegally entering a country. The lack of compassion in Britain’s ongoing debate on immigration makes me sad to the bones.
The one other factor that makes this record different has been the presence every step of the way of our engineer Danny Evans. He’s witnessed all the good and bad and remained professionally objective whilst encouraging and supportive. I hope he considers this his achievement too. (But I’ll be fucked if he’s having any royalties.)
Thanks for listening and see you out there……….somewhere…………#squintsintothefuturewhistfully
Guy on behalf of elbow
x