The music video for this track is another where I think it’s just too perfect with the song. Watching it on MTV2 was how I was first introduced to ‘Richard III’. It was sometime in 2005, ’round Autumn time, I want to say. I would have been ten, so bear this all in mind. I knew who Supergrass were, mainly because ‘Alright’ was the usual video that was played anywhere. This in fact may have been the first time I’d seen another Supergrass video other than that one. I could tell that ‘Alright’ was an older song, just by the way its video looked. But I genuinely thought this was a new song that may have been released maybe a year two before. I honestly couldn’t tell. Turned out the song had been out for almost 10 years at that point. Fooled me, it didn’t look dated in thee slightest. Even today, it still looks brilliant. One of my favourite music videos ever.

The song, though, is pretty flippin’ great too. ‘Richard III’ was released as the second single from Supergrass’s second album In It for the Money in 1997. (One of my favourite albums of all time, here. A lot of “favourites” going on in this post.) ‘Going Out’ was that record’s first single, but had been released more than a year before in the first month of 1996. As a result, ‘Richard III’ was the track that properly marked the oncoming arrival of a new album and a new sound from the trio. They were fiercer, more menacing. They were rocking out. This is all nicely reflected in the video too. The three members play in this green dimly-lit room and play giving each other dirty looks and looking as if they can’t stand each other. Bassist Mick Quinn tries to run out, drummer Danny Goffey pulls him back in. Running water drops onto an electric wire and lightning bolts shoot around the place while the band go through the last chorus. Very cinematic stuff going on there.

Like quite a few other Supergrass songs, I couldn’t really tell you what it’s about because the band would usually write the lyrics as an afterthought to the music. Even the ‘Richard III’ title came about due to the threatening sound of the music rather than anything in the words. There’s no concrete theme, and reading the lyrics, you might think “…What?” “I know you wanna try and get away/But it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever low(?)” There’s not much depth to latch on to. All I know is within the context of the music and how they’re sung/harmonised by Gaz Coombes and Mick Quinn, the lyrics sound fantastic. The whole song’s a ball of energy. Gets the blood pumping. Never letting up really until the instrumental outro which fades out with a hazy wall of hammered-on/pulled-off guitar chords into silence. Makes me want to hear the track just that one more time when that silence comes.