TREVOR: The verses of this song were written long ago, as well as Robbie’s signature guitar riff. The tune used to be called “Zero”. The verses and riff were resurrected because the sound fit with where we were going on this record. I wrote new lyrics and an entirely new chorus. The lyrics are pretty self-explanatory. I don’t have a lot of dough or nice stuff, but it’s ok, we all wind up in the same place anyway. In Ireland a carefree farmer in his 80s once told me, “In the end you don’t take anything with you but your wooden box”. That idea stuck with me and was the seed of the song.
If this record is haunted, and we have our suspicions, this song probably holds some hidden ghosts. We were convinced we heard harmonies on here that were not actually sung.
Shane played two takes of this very busy bassline and nailed them both- piece of cake. His shining moment on the album.
ROBBIE: This song, more than all the others, makes me think of the Donnacona ballroom. You can really hear the natural reverb of the room.
I love that Trevor swears on this one. It’s so off-hand.
I’m happy with the way the chorus came out. We really tried to make the song open up and change atmosphere in those sections with the spooky background vocals, lush mellotron strings, 12-string acoustic and percussion all coming in at once.
Shane’s bass-line is killer.
