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

It was written in studio during the recording of Regeneration. The Divine Comedy had been in studio a first time for three weeks. Then they had a break and when they went back to the studio, with Nigel Godrich on production, there were lots of tensions between the musicians and the producer too. Nigel told them: “Love what you do, or stop doing it.” [1] There’s a sort of irony in that, perhaps Neil had to convince himself to love what he was doing when working with a team.

Because it’s a single, there is a video for this song which was produced by Hammer & Tongs (directed by Dominic Leung and produced by Jo Dunn), it shows the band playing in a studio while the day is passing by. At the beginning, we can see one of Claire Burbridge’s sculptures.

There are also a couple of mix versions of the song. One is by French singer/guitarist Romain Humeau, from the band Eiffel; and the other is the Deadly Avenger Mix, which actually finished as on the album, that is with the beginning of ‘Dumb It Down’. The whole mix has an echo effect on Neil’s vocals.


[1] New Comer, 2001