It was 2017 and I wanted to write a song with just two chords.
Sitting in my cousin’s lounge in Bentley Heath, Birmingham, with a beginners classical guitar in hand, I began messing around with the elementary E shape. Rolling it up to an open F# (with the thumb on the bass note) and back down to E. Anyone could learn to do it in their own way.
We’d just returned from a day trip to the Cotswolds and I was in an Arts & Crafts head space. Certain members of my family (I’m included in this gypsy idyll) have always had a fascination with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, and so, whilst staring at a pair of ornate curtains, the first line came to me – ‘Wrap me in material, endlessly elaborate, contented by the detail, a design of the beautiful’. It all flowed from there. It didn’t take long to write.
When the three of us came to record ‘You Sold Out‘, each brought something evocative to the table; the piano is filmic, it feels like being on a rainy moor up North (down South from here); the bass is meandering, pulsating, conversational. There’s a gorgeous yet plaintive guitar motif in the last verse.
I like the instrumental break – a spacious, bubbling broth of synth and echo, sparse piano, and jangle-ska, held together, betwixt, swaying chords and a sweet-rolling backbeat.
It’s pretty clear what the song’s about. Listening back to it reminds me of when I was a student, working at a huge Royal Mail sorting office, where industrial relations were often strained. On a number of occasions we walked off the shop floor due to the oppressive machinations of newly-appointed managers who were ‘on the turn’, harassing workers who were once their equal. These ‘downing of tools’ moments were my first experiences of the power of organised labour. There was a tremendous comradery, even beauty about it. The heart of a movement, alive, refusing a dehumanising system. I remember working an early shift the morning after one of these walkouts, as I strolled down one of the isles of the gargantuan workspace, someone was playing El Condor Pasa over the Tannoy – ‘I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail. Yes I would, If I could, I surely would. I’d rather be a hammer than a nail. Yes I would, If I only could, I surely would.’ It was like being in a film.
As if exploring a multitude of ways that melody can be layered over two chords, the feel of You Sold Out ends up somewhere different from where it began – bolder, but ultimately unresolved.
I wince a little about some of the vocal delivery. Like many singers I’ve read about, at this point in time, unsure of the quality of my voice. In any event, recordings like all artworks are abandoned when you’ve taken them as far as you can at that moment in time. The embryo of a new idea or direction gestates.
The last note of the song is the sweet tone of RoSa G. More about her later…
You Sold Out Lyrics
E F#
Wrap me in material
Endlessly elaborate
Contented by the detail
A design of the beautiful
I keep my faith with dreamers
Make my beating heart
The treasure chest
Write words of just fraternity
And roll them through the printing press
There’s no doubt
That you sold out
That you sold us
Down the river
And climbed out
Your status to flout
Our master’s worked us to the grave
They legalised iniquity
We downed our tools en masse
And walked away from their economy
Otherworldly instrumental
So we organised in secret
Sewed banners proud, bold and bright
Unfurled them on The Commons
Hoisted high
Up in the light
But there’s no doubt
They sold out
They sold us
Down the river
They climbed out
Their status to flout
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Supporting music is life support:
Buy 24-bit/44.1kHz .WAV of You Sold Out for £2 on Bandcamp
The video background illustration is from this:
Walter Crane – The Triumph of Labour (1891)
Photos were taken by Cara in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh.
Written, produced and recorded by The Suns Of Albert in a Seafield flat on a Mac Book Pro (2012), an Mbox 2 Pro A/D, and Adobe Audition CS6. Except drum parts – recorded at Banana Row on a Tascam portable recorder.