The School

Liz Hunt takes us on a tour through The School's new album

EVERY DAY

I wanted to make sure people didn't think this album is as sad as the title implies - it's actually the complete opposite, and this is such a cheery opening track. This one is about realising you're happy exactly where you are, and appreciating your friends - "every day that is wasted with you is a day never wasted at all". I'd been listening to Go Sailor and Talulah Gosh/Heavenly a lot when I wrote this. 

LOVE IS ANYWHERE YOU FIND IT

We started playing this live a year ago and it's so much fun. It's really simple and we put in a cheeky nod to 'It's Not Unusual' by Tom Jones (which coincidentally I sang for a cover version by The Very Most). The instrumental is one of my favourite parts of the album. 

ALL I WANT FROM YOU IS EVERYTHING

I wanted to write a song that sounded like Belinda Carlisle. But more importantly one that made me feel the same way as when I hear 'Heaven Is A Place On Earth' or '(We Want) The Same Thing'. Me and Harri recorded a demo of the opening 'ooohs' and I played it every day for a year until I got the rest of the song. It's so dreamy, the G#m chord in the chorus, the glock playing along to the vocals, the guitar solo! 

TIL YOU BELONG TO ME

This is where the brass really goes to work. You really don't need me singing on this song, I could just listen to the brass all day. 

DON'T WORRY BABY (I DON'T LOVE YOU ANY MORE)

Oh the strings, and loads and loads more strings! We recorded something crazy like 75 string tracks. This is what happens when I listen to a lot of Dusty Springfield/Burt Bacharach. 

MY HEART'S BEATING OVERTIME

I had this bit of song I loved, I thought it would come out like The Vaselines but it didn't. Every time I tried to add another part it didn't feel right, so we left it as a little interval song halfway through the album and it felt perfect that way. Didn't they used to do that in the 90s or am I making that up?!

WASTING AWAY AND WONDERING

This song is so swingy! We have a little guest appearance too - a 12 second saxophone solo from Stephen Black aka Sweet Baboo. Brief but blistering! 
It's a call to escape - that one last chance to get away and do that thing you've been meaning to do with your life, without that person who doesn't really seem to care either way. This theme of making major life decisions, wasting time, wondering if it could be better (or if you're perfectly happy already) kept popping up in the songs so I decided to make it the album title too, after I checked it looked good written down of course. 

DO I LOVE YOU?

I think this is our most ambitious song. For me it's the hardest to sing (on the last album it was 'Where Does Your Heart Belong?', and on the first album it was 'Let It Slip') - it's a good feeling pushing your voice to see what it can do, I'm not a proper singer, so I'm always learning about my voice. It's also our longest song ever, which means we're prog now. 
This is our little old way of attempting some kind of girl's response to the famous Frank Wilson song. We included some Northern Soul touches like the brass blasts, guitars and piano, but we were really hoping the old Northern Soul crew weren't going to get offended and burn our records. It's more of a tribute and fandom than arrogance. No-one has set fire to anything so far.. 

HE'S GONNA BREAK YOUR HEART ONE DAY

I've described this song in the past as being like September Girls hanging out with The Shangri-Las. That's what's happening in my head anyway. Lots of leather jackets and people wearing all black, probably leaning against a wall looking cool and tough. Despite coolness and toughness there's some guy who has broken one of their hearts and he's at it again. He's probably called Jimmy or Johnny. That guy sucks. 

PUT YOUR HAND IN MINE

Another song where poor producer Rob had to deal with a million string parts again but I adore them! It's such a sweet and simple song, at the moment it's my favourite on the album but that'll keep changing. 

I WILL SEE YOU SOON

This is the first song I wrote for the album. I find it really frustrating that you go to places and make friends with people you may never see again, or maybe at a festival where everyone comes together then they have to go their separate ways. So it's about my really immature frustration over the size of this planet. Well it's meant to be our love song to anyone we meet on our travels, to pretend we can all see each other again soon. I thought it'd look good on a postcard, I might make some 'I Will See You Soon' postcards to remind people to visit each other more often. Unless 'I Will See You Soon' could also be taken as a threat, so maybe not.. 

MY ARMS, THEY FEEL LIKE NOTHING

Ah, the group singalong! The whole band sings this apart from bassist Ryan because he doesn't like(/can't) sing (I mean like really tone deaf, it's just some kind of Harold Bishop noise), so our good friend Simon Love stood in. 

I wrote this song after watching a show of Freschard backed up with Stanley Brinks & The Wave Pictures, then they swapped around and it was Stanley Brinks backed up with Freschard & The Wave Pictures. All their songs are wonderful singalongs where they repeat the main line loads until it's glued to your brain, then David Tattersall plays a really long guitar solo, then they repeat it again loads and loads. So after an hour and a half of that I came home with 3 new songs and this was the one that stuck. It sounds nothing like Freschard, Stanley Brinks or The Wave Pictures but it's all their fault. That's the end of our album, I'm going to try writing a Christmas one next.