The Little Ghost

Released : June 2000

 

Personnel

Peter Nuttall - Music/Lyrics/Vocals
Douglas Hunter - Lyrics

'The little Ghost' was originally a short story about a guy on a park bench, remembering the last time he sat there with someone he loved, someone he never told that he loved, who he'd since lost touch with - wishing they were both there, in the sun, back together - but knowing he'd probably never see her again.  He gets up and leaves only for the girl to turn up five minutes later and she starts to say the exact same things he had.  'The little Ghost' was the thing haunting both of them.  

'Put your hands together' was written as a gospel song, needing an entire choir to bring it to life instead of just me and my tape to tape overdubbing machine.  The 4-track we'd used on Transfection in 1997 wouldn't be used again until the next album.  'Eyes in the rear view mirror' was a bit of a renaissance, built on a pseudo-ska rhythm, it was a bit of a departure and an obvious single.

Cliff Richard had just released a song called 'Millenium Prayer' which was the Lord's Prayer set to music so when Doug handed me his lyrics with the same title, it took a while to come round but the resulting song was very nice indeed.  

'Daddy's eyes' was a lyric Doug wrote for his soon-to-be-born son, and it's clear when you listen to the words just how honest and raw the message is.  We had to get this one right; it was the first song we'd spent more than a few days writing and recording - I think there were about 8 different versions of this until it was finished.  We kept the music box introduction after going back and forwards with it - It was one of the first songs we paid for time in an actual real studio with a real engineer to record.  It's about 7 minutes long so it's the longest song we'd recorded up til then but it was totally worth every second.

'The wicked witch of the North' is me ranting again about someone I didn't like a great deal.  'Myself again' is a kind of part 2 to that song saying I'd moved on and I could finally be myself again.

It wasn't a brilliant album by any means but it gave us confidence that we still had something to say, more music in us, better music in us and we'd start the climb towards our best stuff with the next album.

- Peter