THE DEBUT ALBUm
LEARNING GREEK
out now via so young records
Neighbours is about a guy who lives alone but is convinced that a group of mischievous creatures share his flat, deliberately doing things to make him suffer, like turning off the heating in winter, turning it up when he’s too hot and making noise in the kitchen when he tries to sleep. As he gradually descends into paranoia and psychological instability, he decides to try and get rid of them by turning the oven on and letting gas fill the flat overnight.
Plagiarist is about being a lyricist and having run out of ideas and inspiration. In the song, the character is under pressure to put words to music written by the band, and realises that he can’t even steal lines from his favourite books because he has already used them all.
He fears being discovered as a fraud and being punished for it with death.
MEMORIAL describes a scene from the Iliad in which Andromache must say goodbye to her husband Hector the night before he’s killed in battle. The song was inspired by Alice Oswald’s poem Memorial which describes the same scene, part of which is spoken in the song. The main theme of the song is imminent disaster and trying to remain stoic in the face of it.
In the Paddies is from the point of view of a character who summons various members of the dead throughout history to rise in a muddy field and asks them what it would take to allow their souls to rest peacefully. The song ends with my father reading lines from Memorial by Alice Oswald about the death of Hector.