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Incredibly, it is now more than 7 years since Bristol's Massive Attack burst onto the scene with the classic 'Unfinished Sympathy'...Well, maybe it was incredible then, but reading this when they've just released their first studio album after a gap of seven years it looks surprisingly prolific. Personally, I'd only started buying records in the mid-1990s so 1991 seemed like ancient history in pop terms anyway. A new Massive Attack album was never a regular event though, so there was plenty of excitement about the arrival of Mezzanine, and the first two singles from it became their highest-charting ever: this one earned them their only Top 10 week even though it was released the week after the album.
It wasn't always such smooth sailing, though, with the sessions for the album characterised by a lot of bickering even by their standards, and founding member Mushroom quitting shortly after the release. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I remember reading in Q that he'd forbidden the rest of the band to use the original backing track for this song, forcing them to reconstruct it before Elizabeth Fraser could record her unique vocal. If that's not true, though, please don't sue... If nothing else, it's hard to imagine the track they did use ever being considered second-best, so delicately constructed as it is. Indeed, it seems almost superfluous for there to be a vocal at all. Still, if vocal there was to be, it's hard to imagine anyone more fitting than the former Cocteau Twin to deliver it, even if she does seem to be moving away from her traditional style by singing some actual words here. The only reason it's not really my favourite song is that there's something rather non-human about it, which is surely intentional but makes it a little difficult to relate to.
Oddly enough this song had a bit of a revival a few years ago; it was brought to a new audience as the theme tune to House (only in America, apparently, but that's the only place I've ever watched it) and Newton Faulkner and Jose Gonzales released competing acoustic cover versions in 2007, though neither made it to the Top 40. Both served mainly to vindicate the original production.
Also appearing on: Now 19, 29, 30, 54
Available on: Mezzanine: Limited Edition
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