You listening to song exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. My name is Rishi or way. Song exploder is sponsored by Dave's killer, bread actually love Dave's killer bread, but they gave me a script to read so his attention others. We now have taste in the bread, I'll Dave's were bred. That's right and organic bread it's no longer a sedative for your taste, buds, Dave's killer. red- is on a mission to make the most of the loaf to rid the live? Gmos, those high fructose corn, an artificial ingredients and plant the seeds of good and all that they bake, killer, taste, killer, texture, always organic Dave's killer, bread, bread amplify song exploder is brought to you by progressive. Have you the name, your price tool, yet it works just the way it sounds. You tell progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance

and I'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. It's easy to start a quote: you'll be able to find a rate that works for you. It's one of the many ways you can save with progressive, get your quote today: a progressive dot com and see four out of five new auto customers, recommend progressive since casualty, insurance, company and affiliates pricing, rich match, limited by state law, I've always loved writing with other people, and my first Experiences of songwriting with mud, his friend Andrew from school. We both started. Thank you about the same time and we were both obsessed with the Beatles, when these books. You know these can like how to play the Beatles cords books, and then we Just couldn't do that. We learned the cause, but they just sound right and you later like funny, I was at my at the same book, I was in new ways: is the book the Mean Andrew try to learn the guitar from what I stop playing almost sounds like. no way these cars are all

wrong, and I was like all these years later late like as someone who knows the guitar a little bit better than when I was like forty. You know what I was like no way. That's why we couldn't learn these songs, because the chords are actually wrong. but I have so much to thank the book for because, because the songs didn't sound right when we played them andrew- and I we will said Like- let's just make our own songs up with the chords that we know and that's how I started writing songs is because, if we rule our own songs, no who is going to tell us that they didn't sound, how they were supposed to sound, because it was us who did it'd how they were supposed to sound. I am Alex could of the band friends Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand, formed in two thousand and two in Glasgow, Scotland, millions of albums they've won Mercury Prize at two Brit awards, and they have five Grammy nominations. One of the first singles take me out is also their biggest hit in this.

Singer and guitarist, Alex Sopranos tells the story of how he and his bandmates made the song from the original home demo to the final studio, recording the Mccarthy, who is in the bond as we at the time he and I shared a flat in Glasgow. We will was writing a lot of songs at the time some songs. I would write myself and some songs. We would write together I was really taken with the idea of writing songs in the original Lennon Mccartney style can like head to head the two of you sitting opposite each other kind of working it out, I remember hearing from next room. He was mucking about on one of these old keyboards. It kind of thing

you would get for Christmas when you were twelve or thirteen like mine the first MIDI keyboard kind of thing, Because they have the auto accompaniment mod on them, so you can pull your finger down a key in an old play, a crop, we base line and play the courts or whatever. So I had one of these on the fly and heard Nick in his bedroom mucking about with it This little melody went down. Anti doom doom they do just like that is just as little basic anything and as Roman japanese, on his say: oh come on: let's, let's mix, let's make a song so we took it into the other room and we start trying different Progressions you could do behind that little hook. Very well. I had an acoustic guitar and Nick was blue. in on this little Canavan keyboard thing,

The the I mean it sounds really crap is. Is it really bucket? Regarding knows a little dick to form so things you would get? Guess I would use that then the same way the most. physicians use their phone nowadays, you know, like you, take voice, notes or whatever degree they get they get negative. So that's the bluegrass accompaniment setting on a yamaha keyboard from the mid nineties. It was our rights. It sounded kind of jointly and it sounded kind of fun start off. no, actually, the melody that ended up, as in the end, the night before I'd watched, a film called enemy at the gates

and it's set during the Second World WAR set around the the siege of Stalingrad and one of the. So the film is this stand off between two as snipers the law is the soviet sniper end at Harris's, the the evil Nazi and there, the both can tucked away. Hidden from each other waiting for the other to make a move and to expose themselves because as soon as the other makes a move, the other will know where they are and we'll take them out and so Had this film fresh in my head. The next day when I was looking about with Nick on this song, it was ok not a bad, but this image which of the two snipers left quite an impact on me, It felt, like a very good metaphor for the kind of romantic situations that we sometimes find ourselves in. You know where you both

oh that you're into the other, but nobody wants to kind of lake suppose their vulnerability and and and make a move and let the other knew how they feel, and so I could write so can't really tell what we're talking about here. Let's talk about snipers aroma, talking about some kind of romantic situation, I wrote a bunch of imagery straight away for the idea for the verses. So if you're lonely, you know I'm here, the waiting for you the crosshair just a short away from you and then said I feel, is gonna course. Together At the time I was really really into howling wolf, the old blues guy, always loved the way that he would like sing the guitar and the guitar would then sing back to him

do think you are asked her for water. Do do do like so good, like a look in the way the guitar in the Balkans, where they were kind of like Do dances intertwining their bodies across. smooth over polish dance floor like it was really really powerful. What I really wanted to do something like that? It's to, like I say, don't you know deep down. I don't like this kind of like thing the

and I guess that's how you end up doing your own thing. Isn't it like you, listen to somebody, you love doing something to kind of go out. That's great! I'm going to know, I'm not going to do it like that. Cuz! I'm not, and then you could have change and then it becomes your thing and the brain. Take me out or me to take out a date or asked me to take me out with a bullet love that in a song lyric like degree of ambiguity and immediacy simultaneously, the We then took it to the band at that point the band members were Bob hardy playing base, Paul Thomson playing drums and Nick Mccarthy play in guitar, and we kind of got a heads around it to a degree and we played a gig but I felt right always felt kind of wrong, because if the course

who was right then the verse Temple felt too slow and if the verse, Temple was right, then the chorus Temple felt too fast and so we can wait, left it for a little bit, and so you shall come back to some point. Then one day I had, this idea is right: Luke had this problem with the temple of the song. Why do we just take all the verses we'll play them just altogether. So feel lonely way from you and if you leave here slow down the and

all the courses together and then we do have to worry. Then you got both temples late. Both temples are right. We tried that it felt it felt great. We good but it needed something else as well needed something really dramatic. Other than try and be apologetic about the Temple, change just gonna, be be really super bold about in an own it This led to another idea that we had. There was something that was kind of like a bit of an in joke amongst us. At the time Bob had come across some young guy in the states favorite genre of music was what he called sports rock. and we found this amazing, the amusing- that we'd never heard this term before sports rock,

and what he meant was rock, which was played in sports, eighty is that genre is an actual thing. Yeah yeah there in the nineties, there were like compilations called and job jams. No, we write, so it is actually a thing like see. We thought just some mad kid in the states. As we are the the least sporty people you could ever come across in the world. If you think of what a joke is, then the inverse of it. I guess then you'd find us and so we thought be funny if we played sports rock in some way it the things that he was putting in his lists of favorite sports rocks. songs with things like Queen and I am I the tiger and says what makes it sports rock and one the things We felt identified. It was the symbol. Catch when he hit the symbol and then

immediately with your hand, so was pushed. It is both highly amusing to us and extremely exciting at the same time, so we'd written he's cords and there rather than just having guitar, Was strumming chords, I found that really really boring all, plus were really into like early sequenced. Synthesizer music, really of Marauder. Indeed, f in that kind of thing, and often we raised is like Mona falling synthesizers,

it, held on an arpeggiator. Doing single dose can only di di di di di di di di. The thought well it'd be great to take that approach to arrangement and stick Guitars like half the guitars mimicking king, synthesizers. So you got the three. No! in the cord, and I took the three notes and put them on the three different where's the base call one to which felt pretty cool to me

it's funny listening to as well, because like even though we're trying to play like sequenced synthesizers. We really weren't pulling it off because it's so kind of like imperfect and that's what I love about it. Listening to it. It's like yeah, that's really kind of not right. It's really kind of not on the beat, but it's when you kind of like pulling and pushing and like pulling yourself back in time with each other. And yes, that's what it's a like. Listening to children and police, I mean to be in line with each other. What we would do with a guitar. I haven't this, allows the into twining melody easily, whether we can a crossing over each other, and you couldn't tell why from the other, and we will do the same thing with the Balkans as well? I sang lead and Nick would do a can like a backup.

I know I know I believe yeah. I know I won't believe it when I know I won't be with you when we recording we recorded with, call Johansson, so we went switch two normal in the south of Sweden to a studio called. Wallace Studios and I remember the same that we were all really into music like we would go to clubs a lot together and so much and music is led by the kick drum and remember we're to tour. We really want wanted trump to be like really powerful and deep and These are all I've got this great idea, which was to tape to kick drums together,

one against the other than taken together. So like one super long extra long kick drum and what it does to the acute Sixers is everything is just like consistently loud, like on a date to waste The rules can like small decisions like that which relate like how do we kind of like get what we I about dance music and what we love about the wrongness of being in a live band together, and we all I, like this song, Osama tos wife, was really into that song as well like she thought. I remember her coming down the students. Oh, that was really nice. It's really catchy, but I remember tour hated. It it was like I dunno, why are you recording this one late, but then I remember him. One day says well. No, I was I was talking to my wife, She says you really like searches very catching. We should work on it, and so, thanks to MRS, you save the song

The It was a real We wanted to rebel against who I called protocols rock at the time, even if you Didn'T- Plato, click, click, the trend and it still can arrive within recording, which is to put everything in time, and he kept these one. Lee Correct, boring, sounding performances and late. Like I hate it really hated and again going back to the thing about

when Andrew and I were writing songs together. If you're right in the song, nobody can t hell, you that's the wrong thing to do. maybe a useful realization to realize that there is no right and no proper way of doing things, and often the proper way to do things is the boring way to do things. When their there's no sin worse than this and have been boring. the EU, and now here's take me out by Franz Ferdinand.

In its entirety,

me. To learn more visit song Exploder Dotnet thanks to stream or download, take me out, and you can watch the video

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an exploder for seventy five dollars off, borrow dot, slash song, Exploder, this episode and the show's theme music were made by me with editing, help from Casey Deal and Craig Healy artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith and production assistance from Chloe Parker Song exploded is a proud member of Radio Tokyo from PR acts. A network of independent listener supported artist own pocket. You can learn more about our shows at Radio Tokyo got FM. You can follow me on twitter and integrated at brushing your way. in follow the show at song exploder. You can also get a song exploder t shirt at song, exploder, dot, net, slash shirt, I'm Rishi case your way, thanks for listening

Radio to. There's a brand new show joining Radio Tokyo called Oprah predominates every week, history. means Leah, Wright, rigueur and Kelly Carter. Jackson are going die I've deep into the cultural significance of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and you might know, Kelly Carter Jackson, because she's the host of another radio Toby show this day esoteric political history on Oprah dammit. The two friends are going to talk about why Oprah matters to culture and how Oprah It's so much of the culture from diet. What clubs to celebrity two views to make overs and our spin offs. If you love Oprah, You just want to learn more about her. You have to check out Oprah dynamics. The study of the queen of talk, and starting March Thirtieth, listen at the utopia dot fm wherever you listen to podcasts