
Track 1 – “Urban Fox”
Written one sunny Saturday at Chris Barber’s house in 1992, the original lyrics for the chorus were “World war three’s upon us, what can we do? They’re gonna push the button now to put an end to you”. After learning Doug had a stack of lyrics sitting in a notebook, I told him about the band. After hearing the name of the band, he came up with a lyric for a song called “Urban Fox” and the two fitted together perfectly. We demoed this together with Darren Spark on Guitar, Doug on Vocals and me on Keys in early 1993. It was Darren’s guitar that really drove this track. In some ways, that original demo of us all playing live is heads above this re-imagined version. You lose a lot in the sterile digital world – the energy and the dynamism isn’t there. There’s a whole debate about live versus recorded music isn’t there? Some songs just don’t work live – but that’s a discussion for another day.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Chris Barber/Peter Nuttall)

Track 2 – “Neon City”
A rainy Sunday in mid-1992 and cancelled plans led me to the keyboard in the corner of my room. It was around the time that Michael Ball was representing the UK at Eurovision with the song ‘One Step Out of Time’ and I thought, “I can write a Eurovision Song”. So I tried – and this came out. Doug’s lyric was impeccable, painting the canvas with images of late night neon-washed streets- missing the last bus, waiting for a taxi. We demoed this in the same session as ‘Urban Fox’ and as the intro was playing, Doug started singing ‘Sometimes’ by Erasure. 30 years on and I’m still trying and failing to get close to sounding 1% like 90s Erasure.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 3 – “Ghost Town”
In early 1995 (March, I think), the Satellite channel ‘UK Gold’ was showing re-runs of old episodes of Top of the Pops. They showed Human League singing ‘Lebanon’, a song I’d never heard before. I wrote “Ghost Town” within the hour – quite obviously influenced by the Human League song. What was only clear to me when I started Re-imagining the song for this project was that the chorus tune was exactly the same as that of Gary Numan’s “Face to Face” – which I was also into at the time. Unconscious but obvious. Ghost Town is about my own isolation, perceived, from everything happening around me at the time.
(Lyrics and Music : Peter Nuttall (and Human League and Gary Numan))

Track 4 – “Midnight Rain”
This was a sister lyric to Doug’s ‘Neon City’. He captured the romance of dancing in the rain on a night on the town perfectly. I wrote the music on my upright piano and demoed it with a full three minute piano solo. This re-imagined version attempts to capture the feel of a Jazz Club after midnight, the couple in the song talking in the corner of a bar, looking out onto a street-lamp lit alleyway. It’s all about the atmosphere.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 5 – “Whatever It Takes”
When I first recorded the demo for this, it felt like our first ‘big song’. The demo had a two minute intro (inspired by Tears for Fears’ “Badman’s Song”) and contained a riff from a “The Time” song called “Blondie”. This Reimagined version is much more concise and stark; most of the heavy instrumentation has been stripped away to allow the actual sentiment to come out. There was another demo I recorded in late 1996 with a guitar solo on the end – but it was all a bit much.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 6 – “Stone”
In June 1995, I wrote and recorded five songs in two days. The lyrics had come from a collection Ian had given me which I’d hacked about a bit and re-ordered. They made up the EP called ‘Citadel’ and one song in particular ‘Stone’ broke the mould of the type of songs I’d been writing. It was different – slow, deliberate, atmospheric. Everything we recorded from 1994 to 2010 were demos waiting to be produced properly. This is a great example of why this re-imagined project is so very important for us – it allows us to turn those demos into fully produced songs which aren’t how we originally imagined them – hence, re-imagined.
The lyric about a ‘Jealous Moon in a jealous sky’ in amongst those Ian had given me was actually from a Sting song – one I’d not heard previously. Thinking they were Ian’s (and thinking a jealous moon was a ridiculous idea), I changed them to “Shaded Haze, Silver Moon’s Crown”. This Re-imagining also includes some of the lyrics that were excluded from the original demo.
My favourite song on the EP is ‘Set Me Free’ but as I recorded a full version of that in 2012 which I loved, that version will remain final.
(Lyrics : Ian Forbes, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 7 – “Want You”
This was the first song written for ‘The Message’ album and, some would argue, the last. The demo had an ‘appropriated’ guitar which was to be filled in later. The band wouldn’t get together to play it until a year later in 1996 but even then, we never got round to it. This finished version now has the guitar part but exists in an entirely different form.
I find the further into the back catalogue I go (the closer to today that is) the less misty-eyed I get. Some of these demos don’t have any strong emotional charge for me. This is one of those – I sort of liked it at the time but not enough to ever go back to it until now. Maybe that’s a good thing though because I’m judging with today’s eyes and re-writing with today’s sensibilities. Or something.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 8 – “When I Hear Luther Sing”
In May 1995 I discovered the music of Luther Vandross. In June 1995, Doug gave me the lyric for this song – serendipitously. The demo was meant to convey a soulful feel, something a bit looser and softer than the other Urban Fox stuff at that time (especially ‘Want You’ and the ‘Citadel EP’). This re-imagining is a little sharper than was intended but that’s a symptom of producing a final song based on a demo recorded 29 years previous.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 9 – “Minneapolis Blue”
During a song-writing session in September 1995, Doug played me a song he’d written. It was an up-tempo thing which he sang along to. He explained that this section was to be followed by a slower ballad version with one melting into the other. The two demos I recorded in 1995 didn’t ‘melt’ as I didn’t have technology to do so. This re-imagining combines the fast and slow versions into one.
(Music and Lyrics : Douglas Hunter)

Track 10 – “The Hardest Road”
This was a Gospel inspired thing which I wasn’t able to demo correctly – for one, the first section which was just synth-piano was very top heavy, then when the drums and bass came in, the natural compression of a magnetic tape kicked in and muddied the whole thing. These days you can get an entire choir in a box so they’re here on this re-imagining. Perhaps this version goes a little too far but Urban Fox has always been one for using too many instruments and turning everything up a little bit too loud.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 11 – “Before the Fall”
This is one of our most important songs; we’ve been trying to record the best possible version since December 12th 1995, when it was originally written. It was rehearsed with the band over and over, trying to get it ready to play live. There was a re-recorded version which appeared on ‘Strange Friends’ in 1997, a ‘Trance’ version on 1996’s ‘Magic’ and every few years, an updated version on whatever technology we had at the time. This re-imagined version owes a lot to “Rubberband Man” – a groove which absolutely suited the song and gave us this, probably the best sounding if not the best structurally, version. I don’t think we ever actually played it live…
(Lyrics : Ian Forbes, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 12 – “I Won’t Be Here”
This was taken from the ‘Vicious Sky EP’ from January 1996. There’s no tale behind this song really, only that it’s a song about breaking up with someone, meeting someone else and saying to the original person ‘If you change your mind about us, I won’t be here.’ I thought I was being clever at the time but in hindsight it was a very childish thing to do. I obviously hadn’t developed the necessary adult emotions required to function correctly in society – which is probably why the breakup happened in the first place. I like the song though so there is that.
(Lyrics and Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 13 – “So This Pain”
This song was something of a watershed. It shifted the focus somewhat – the tone of our song writing changed. It enabled some of the better songs on ‘History’ to be written and definitely enabled the freedom of creativity that was required for the ‘Magic’ album. A lot of ‘Magic’ was songs which didn’t have conventional structures and tended to meander – ‘So This Pain’ was an experiment that worked and gave us the confidence to write more unconventional songs – see ‘Transfection‘.
(Lyrics : Ian Forbes, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 14 – “No Room at the Inn”
Our attempt at a Christmas song. A brilliant Doug lyric which was demoed at Christmas 1995 and finally given a full version on this re-imagined project.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)

Track 15 – “The Hustler”
The original demo was awful. A brilliant lyric with the most generic musical accompaniment. Listening to Kenny Rogers one day gave me the idea to re-imagine this as a country song.
(Lyrics : Douglas Hunter, Music : Peter Nuttall)