Are You Still Awake? - Artificial Light, 2008

This song was written in the middle of the whole recording process. I remember playing it to Matty (the producer) in his kitchen and him saying something along the lines of "that is going on the album".

That's one of the things I particularly like, and hate to a degree, about Matty as a producer. If something is shit, he'll say so. There were a couple of songs meant for Artificial Light that he said, in no uncertain terms, weren't up to it. Some I agreed with, and one or two I didn't. Some may end up on later albums, some may just be relegated to Song Heaven (read, my iTunes).

Are You Still Awake? is, I think, my favourite song from Artificial Light (in close competition with Love Span A Web). There's a few reasons for this.

1. I get to Rock The Fuck Out. I've been in a few bands - my first was called Amplexus, and we were just a little village cover band.

The second rose from the ashes of the first, going under the moniker District 32. We tried writing our own songs for around a year in 2002/2003, and came up with some pretty sweet ones. On that note, every year my parents and I throw a Boxing Day party on our palatial country estate, to which we invite everyone we've ever met. Generally at least two other members of District 32 turn up, and we get into an inevitable jam once we remember that we have a PA in the back room and enough guitars to satisfy an army of mariachis. It's always really, really good fun.

The third band, some of you might remember, was Body Electrica. There's still a myspace floating around if you're feeling hunty (actually, there's still one for District 32 as well. Best leave that be.)

The common denominator is that all these bands Rocked. I enjoy Rocking. Those of you who have caught a Matt Johnston live acoustic show will attest to the fact that I like Rocking, band or no. So when we sat down to record this song, I wanted it to be huge. And we got that, as well as we could with what we had. When the kickdrum beat kicks in, that still gets me.

2. Ziv. You'll recognise Ziv at the only voice that isn't mine on the record. He lived downstairs from the studio, and would wander up at odd times of the day and hang out while we recorded. He got more and more involved as time went on (if you have the album, Don't Be A Stranger was done live, in one take, with Ziv hanging around somewhere in the background), and he was a singer himself in his native Hebrew. So we got him up to the mic and said "sing something", and he did, and we kept it because it's beautiful.

A rough translation of his part: "There are things that matter beyond love. Life is much more than just happiness."

Ziv brought this song to life. Thanks, man.

3. The end. This is, I suppose, part of number 2, but sod it, I'm so happy with the end it deserves its own mention. Ziv's voice and my own voice weaving together at the end was a total accident (I'm not ashamed of that), and so lovely that it had to be kept.

The last chorus was particularly fun to record. There are about 5 tracks of pure noise going on there. Plug in the guitar, turn it right up and hit it with things. That's the future of recording, son.

So the meaning behind the song. If I'm being honest, a lot of it is a riddle to me. There are parts which dealt with the break-up of a big relationship which happened during the course of recording, and the occasional difficulty of trying to readjust to a life apart from someone I love.

But there are also parts of the song which talk about how I think of myself, and how I often find that I don't respect myself an awful lot, or I don't respect the people I'm close to. I find it's a lot easier to just hate everybody, then no one feels left out.

That's a horrible thing to say.

The thing is, I'm the same as everyone - I'm a million different people from one day to the next (god, that's a wonderful line). A lot of people seem uncomfortable approaching that concept, that they are unpredictable to everyone, themselves most of all. How well do you know yourself?

The last part, the 'We're going to make it out of here just fine', is a simple line I had sitting around for a while. For a short time it was going to be the title of the album, I liked it that much. It may have just been where I was at the time, but just that unpoetic sentence - We're going to make it out of here - was addictively hopeful to me. I don't even know who it was directed at. I had to put it somewhere, and luckily it ended up in a suitably dramatic context.

Ultimately, the song is about loneliness, and acceptance of loneliness to the point of positively bathing in it, revolting as that may sound. The whole song, even as it jumps around from character to character (which, to me, it undoubtedly does) is always saying the same thing: if there's nothing to care about, there's nothing to keep you here. And when you're miserable, that's an attractive concept.