The Spiritualized song inspired by The Beach Boys and The Velvet Underground
In 1997, the alternative rock wave seemed to reach a zenith with seminal releases like Radiohead’s OK Computer, The Verve’s Urban Hymns and Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One gracing melophile ears. Challenging such releases in the year’s greatest album contest was the Spiritualized masterpiece Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.
Continuing his cosmic trajectory through neopsychedelia, which began in the 1980s project Spacemen 3, frontman Jason Pierce unleashed the full breadth of his musical education in 1997. Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is a tour-de-force of unremitting eclecticism, ranging from the tear-jerking strings of ‘Broken Heart’ to the razor-sharp closing epic ‘Cop Shoot Cop’.
Perhaps the only constant one notices while spinning the album is an air of dejection and pain. As ‘Broken Heart’ might suggest, Pierce recorded the album following the dissolution of a relationship. In 1995, Pierce separated from Kate Radley, who had played keyboards for Spiritualized for a few years. The seams fell apart when Pierce discovered that Radley had been seeing The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft behind his back for around a year. By the time Pierce found out, Radley had already married Ashcroft at a secret wedding ceremony.
Despite the running theme, in a 2015 interview with Uncut, Pierce revealed that most of the material for the album was written before his breakup with Radley. “The songs were written ahead of my split with Kate,” he said. “I didn’t split up with Kate and then write ‘Broken Heart’ – that would be quite a weird thing to do. Honestly, I’d been listening to lots of Patsy Cline and Jimmy Scott, songs full of absolutely heartbreaking things.”
With this in mind, it’s safe to assume the single ‘I Think I’m In Love’ was written as a more generalised assessment of love. It’s worth noting, too, that Pierce’s songs frequently reference drug abuse or addiction in double entendres. “There was quite a lot of turmoil within the band at the time, but the lyrics aren’t specifically about Jason and his emotional state,” the Spiritualized guitarist John Coxon told Uncut of the track. “They’re about the human condition. We all have those insecurities.”
Pierce vividly remembers writing ‘I Think I’m In Love’. “I kind of remember that whole lyric for the end section coming together in one afternoon at Moles Studio,” he said. “Once I’d committed to the idea, it was quite easy to get everything down.”
Stretching its legs across eight minutes, the song floats from a space-like ether into a phase of attacking percussion accentuated by brass and slide guitar. Pierce wanted to create the two-part composition after hearing similar feats by two iconic 1960s bands. “We’d been listening to The Beach Boys and The Velvet Underground, so the idea that you could take two songs and make one song, it felt like you could do that quite easily,” Pierce said. “And not two songs that weren’t good: two of your best songs. It made sense. It wasn’t a leap into the unknown.”
As a man of true artistic integrity, Pierce undoubtedly winced when acquiescing to the radio’s suggestion that he create a four-minute radio-friendly version. All the same, the radio edit captured the essence of the original, promoting Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space to a respectable number four on the UK Albums Chart.
Listen to the unadulterated eight-minute version of ‘I Think I’m In Love’ below.
