Inspirations – The Top

All these songs on "The Top" were written whist taking enormous amounts of drugs. So the sense is somewhat strange...

Finally... "The Top" album is looking back, about the most difficult to talk / write about - a lot of it is me working things out of myself that were very unpleasant and old...

The "modus operandi" would generally be getting up at 6pm, going downstairs to the bar (we stayed in a village pub!), getting very out of it, going to the studio, getting even more out of it, recording, falling over and crawling back down the hill to sleep about 10am.

This, not surprisingly, leaves me with few lucid reasons or explanations about this particular record. But it was a lot of fun! Well... Some of it...

Shake Dog Shake - Me hating myself... But a fab open guitar tuning...

Bird Mad Girl - The polar bear was the symbol (zoo-wise) for me insensible savagery caged to be stared at. Or something like that..?

Wailing Wall - About my trip to Jerusalem with the Banshees...

Give Me It - Oh dear... I was not very good company around this particular song...

Dressing Up - About performing: I like this song a lot.

The Caterpillar - Hope...

Piggy In The Mirror - Me hating myself again - references I recognize to the Nic Roey film "Bad Timing" which Severin and I watched one night in slow motion... Too many drugs... Blah blah blah.

The Empty World - The flip side of Charlotte...

Bananafishbones - The title, for some no-reason, from "A Perfect Day For Bananafish" - a short story by J. D. Salinger... Again me hating myself...

The Top - Finally coming to my senses - something of a milestone lyric this one - and good fun spending the night getting just the right spinning top sound take!!!

Throw Your Foot - Magic mushroom tea? And good pop!

Happy The Man - If only...