Tag Archives: in it for the money

#1311: Supergrass – Sun Hits the Sky

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“I know a place where the suuun hits the skkyyy!” A great, great opening line to a song, the song in question being Supergrass’s ‘Sun Hits the Sky’ from their second album, In It for the Money, released in 1997. I’ve made it known in many a post before that this is my favourite Supergrass album, and I want to stress again that while you all may get your Britpop fill from Oasis or Blur, Pulp or Suede, all very respectable choices, please, please don’t leave Supergrass out in the cold. You should all be listening to Supergrass. Not one dud exists in the band’s six-album discography. I’m sad that it’s more or less confirmed that they won’t make another one, even though they are kind of together at the moment to celebrate the 30th anniversary. In another way, sometimes it’s best to just let things be. I can understand that. So I’ll leave it at that too.

Anyway, ‘Sun Hits the Sky’ is the sixth song on In It for the Money, closing out the album’s first half if you were to listen to it on vinyl. I have a strong, strong feeling that I heard the song in an advert for a UK holiday resort of some kind. Maybe Butlin’s. Maybe Center Parcs. If any member of Supergrass happens to read this, could you possibly confirm whether this was the case? I would have been a small child when those “commercials” were going around. But come 2005/06 when I was a little older, and by that, I’m talking the age of 10, Supergrass videos were usually playing on the television – a whole lot of fun they’d be too – and the video for ‘Sun Hits the Sky’ showed up one day on one of those video channels. The song was immediately recognisable, but the main thing I got was that it was Supergrass who had made the song – I want to say I had gained a fair knowledge of the band by then – and that this thing called In It for the Money was something to get, because song that was shown on the TV from it was I enjoyed a heck of a lot.

So where is this place where the sun hits the sky? Well, we all know that the sky isn’t this kind of border that the sun reaches up to. It’s all really limitless. I know it’s not meant to be taken literally. In fact, I think this track is about wanting to get really, really high – more in a haze of marijuana smoke rather than a darker deal with heroin – a bit like Paul McCartney’s ode to pot with ‘Got to Get You into My Life’. When you’re in your 20s and in a band, you’re gonna be smoking joints at some point. Gaz Coombes about knowing a place where the sun hits the sky and things get all distorted and strange, and in the choruses he sings about being someone’s doctor and being on the way to prevent someone from coming down. I guess like how it’s a dealer’s job to deliver the goods to their clients. I think I’ve got this song down. Just can’t help but feel good when listening to this one, got such a driving momentum. Very, very hard not to sing along to once you’ve got the words down, and notable highlights are the keyboard solo by Rob Coombes and the psychedelic ending where tablas and bongos enter the mix and the song eventually fades out with Mick Quinn laying down some licks on the bass guitar. A big “Yes” from me for this tune.

#1243: Supergrass – Sometimes I Make You Sad

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In It for the Money is my favourite Supergrass album. I may have said that before in the posts for other songs from there. There’s no sort of concept you have to dig your brain into, or any kind of lyrical themes to take mind of. The record is just song after song of unforgettable bangers. Bangers with some slower tunes in between. …Money is grander in scale in comparison to I Should Coco, which was released a couple years prior, marked by a bigger production and a use of a wider variety of instrumentation, whilst still containing a lot of the playfulness and memorable melodies that endeared Supergrass to so many in the first place. Its final track, ‘Sometimes I Make You Sad’, is very playful and however stranger it may sound in comparison to the songs that come before it, it acts as the perfect way to bring the album to a close.

The track preceding ‘Sometimes…’ ends with this slow fade out of the band jamming. A few moments of silence arrive. Then ‘Sometimes…’ starts and you’re greeted with a gloomy Hammond organ and a beatbox loop performed by members of the band which apparently took a couple of hours to properly get down. The scary-circus ‘Benefit of Mr. Kite’ vibe the song has going for it wasn’t something I expected on that first time of listening, I tell you. But underneath the spooky atmosphere is a something of a motivational song, telling you to do what you like, go out into the world and explore. The ‘motivational’ part is somewhat negated though as the lyrics make sure to tell us that whatever you do, no one really cares all that much and there’s nothing out there that’s all that exciting anyway.

For the longest time, I assumed that bass guitarist Mick Quinn was the lead vocalist of the track. It obviously wasn’t Gaz Coombes, and Quinn does sometimes take the lead in a few Supergrass songs. But that assumption was laid to rest when, during a Twitter “album listening party” in the COVID times, Quinn mentioned that it was drummer Danny Goffey who sung the song, after a quick trip to the pub. So it turned out ‘Ghost of a Friend’ wasn’t the only Supergrass he was the lead on after all. The reason his voice is so high is because, and I’m guessing here, he recorded it while the track was playing at a slower speed, so when sped up it sounds like he ingested some helium before performing. That is the reason the guitar solo also sounds all spindly like it does. So why not apply the same technique for the voice? Thanks to the remastered deluxe edition that came out in ’21, I can now embed some moments that look into the making of the track. More specifically, the creation of the beatbox loop and Goffey’s guide vocal. Both comical in their own ways.

#1124: Supergrass – Richard III

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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.

#715: Supergrass – Late in the Day

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‘Late in the Day’ can be found on Supergrass’ second album In It for the Money. That specific album by the band is my favourite of theirs, though I wouldn’t say ‘Late in the Day’ is a song that I’ve wanted to put on repeat. It is always a nice feeling when it pops up on shuffle though. Someone at the band’s record label saw it as commercially viable and it was released as the last single from the album in late 1997.

The song itself is about having a special someone on your mind and constantly thinking about them. It happens that ‘late in the day’ is the time when this seems to happen for singer Gaz Coombes. In comparison to the other singles from Money, ‘Late in the Day’ is mainly led by the keyboard work of Rob Coombes. His playing provides the chord progression of the track, while also adding atmospheric touches like the organ during the verses and the whistling tones during the instrumental bridge. Danny Goffey’s drumming provides a hop/skipping rhythm to the composition, which I’m thinking inspired the pogo-stick heavy plot of the music video. I don’t know what else in the song could have influenced the video directors behind it. It’s a great watch though, captivating in its own way.

Can’t feel bad after listening to this one. Good for a lazy summer day or two.

#622: Supergrass – In It for the Money

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So after Supergrass gained a ton of praise from their debut album I Should Coco in 1995, helped tremendously by their most recognisable hit and youth anthem ‘Alright‘, Steven Spielberg approached the band in an effort to make a television series with them based on that of The Monkees. The group declined, instead choosing to record their second album. This was most definitely the better route to take. Coco was a burst of sharp wit and energy. Its production made all the instruments sound very tight, like they were playing together in a tiny, tiny room. In It for the Money took a totally different direction.

Instead of carrying on with the usual breakneck velocity, Money is made of songs that are allowed to breathe. Take a breeze and chill with some slower tempos. The tracks also sound expansive. There’s also a wider variety of instruments. But the group never lost their playfulness and knack for great tunes. The title track shows it all in the three minutes it lasts for and is a fantastic taster for what’s to come It opens the album with an creepy organ drone that transitions into a heavy Beatles-like arpeggiated riff and Gaz Coombes’ vocal.

“Here I see a time to go and leave it all behind/And you know it’s wrong to fall/We’re in it for the money” are three lyrics that when put read together like that don’t seem to make much sense, though Coombes and bassist Mick Quinn on higher harmony deliver them with a power and confidence that make them sound like a formal declaration. There’s a musical build as the last phrase is repeated before the song explodes into its main refrain. The track takes another turn as it leads into another verse of repeated lines, accompanied with a beautiful guitar line and descending bass groove. A glorious fanfare of horns appear. It’s beautiful stuff.

It comes to a very abrupt halt but you have to listen to the album from front to back to understand the effect of that production decision. Summing it up, this was the introduction to a new Supergrass back in ’97 – definitely not a case of the sophomore slump.