Summer Night Sky

Released : October 2003

 

Personnel

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

It was as if I'd been saving up the very best of Doug's lyrics to stick them all on the same album.  That's not the case however, it was just a happy accident that this group of songs came from a particularly fertile period.  The only song on the album that's not Doug's is 'One Blue Day' which I'd written whilst up a very high hill in the Lake District being stared at by a sheep.  It's a bit disjointed and has almost the same chord structure as 'Forbidden Fruit' but I rather enjoyed the guitar solo.

'Rain on the Sidewalk' is one of my all time favourite Fox songs.  The music sounds exactly like it's raining, and the words are achingly wonderful - they paint the picture of two people who can't get on even though they're so much in love.  'I could never walk away from you' was that other Bryan Adams-like song which I think we nailed.  Again, I was very much enjoying using guitar - a wonderful feature of the 12-track in both effects, production and freedom of thought.

'After closing time' is another of my all time favourites.  I was on a roll at the time - the album was all written and recorded in about 3 weeks I think - it wasn't long anyway.  It's a haunting atmosphere, again using my limited guitar playing skills to their limit.  It really does capture that 2am stroll home once the clubs kick out and you're trying to stumble along in the dark.

'Whispers and Screams' is a song of contrasts, but real ones - not just one of those 'lets use things that are opposite'; it's from a very real place.  Caught between whispers and screams, between reality and dreams.  Wonderful.

As you can probably tell, I'm in love with this album.  It came together easily - it sounded as good as we'd sounded since we started recording and it was only to get better.  I even managed to make the short chorus of 'Realist - Idealist' work.  Sometimes it just hits you.

'Welcome to my world' was a definite single, if we'd been able to release one at the time and a song that's been crying out for a remake.  'Night time radio' was a homage to those late night radio shows with music you'd never hear on any other channel at any other time - or for me, a late night phone-in show.

'Urban City High' is probably the weakest on the album but still enjoyable nonetheless.  The album originally had ten tracks but the tenth was omitted when I realised I was probably drunk when I recorded it.  It was a traditional mash-up of 'bring a little water Sylvie' and 'Wade in the water', both of which I'd learned at University in a World Music lecture.  It was a four part vocal only thing - which was pretty terrible as it turned out.

The cover of the album is Tynemouth Priory - where I spent a good few hours in the fading Summer sun (it was October and still warm) thinking about what to call the album.  It was more for my own experience of writing and recording the album that I chose this photo and the title just made sense as I was spending a lot of time looking at the stars, looking for direction, looking for somewhere to belong.

I'd explore that a lot more in the next album - one which took about eight months to arrive but the technology was about to crank up a gear once more and so did the songwriting.

- Peter