Heaven Only Knows

Heaven Only Knows rather confusingly ended up as the lead track on the last single The End. For a long time it was one of our favourites, so you might be wondering why it wasn't on the album. The story is long, and not especially interesting...

The track started life as a sample from Simon's beautiful red SH-101, with a very analogue sound, with the working title Battleship Grey. When Simon passed it on to me, it was a lively track which reminded me (ahem) very much of the wonderful Röyksopp single Remind Me, which has some really evocative lyrics about happy memories, particularly about travelling abroad.

At the same time, Simon and I had been doing a lot of city breaks across western Europe, visiting obscure places on late night flights, and so I had a lot of places from which to draw inspiration. I've got a feeling there were already some rough lyrics, and I can't remember what remains of those, but I effectively rewrote the whole thing. I've got a feeling the line about "All the sins and the harsh regrets" may have come from the original...

At this stage it was all going well, and we must have been pretty happy with the production, because I don't think it changed in the slightest from the original demo. Unfortunately, it was in the recording process that we discovered it was almost entirely impossible to sing.

The final version is a patchwork quilt of different vocal takes from different sources, many of which were recorded several months apart, and incredibly it works pretty well. Once again we have a track which we're both pleased with. So much so, in fact, that it was very nearly held back to be included on album number nine.

And so it's a bit of a shame really, because this track could have fitted nicely on Dusk. But that was clearly never meant to be...