To see the lyrics, click on the name of the version you are interested in (on the left).

This is quite a personal song. When Neil Hannon wrote it, he was living in London and part of the Irish community there. Most arrived there to look for a job they wouldn’t find in Ireland or in Northern Ireland. Even if for him the situation was maybe somewhat different, Neil Hannon felt the same. He was in London because the music industry was there, not in Belfast or Enniskillen. Little by little in the song he comes to evoke his situation, how by being in London he managed to find success, how his “picture is seen on every magazine and every TV screen”, and how because of that he might lose his soul, not just as anyone becoming famous would; lose his Irish soul. It seems the only way not to lose it is to come back to Ireland. Neil was probably already thinking of it, but then he didn’t know when it would happen. In 2003, he decided to leave London and settle in Dublin.

This B-side was played live in 1998-1999.