The movie that inspired Arctic Monkeys song ‘Hello You’
The songwriting of Alex Turner has always had a tie to his roots in Sheffield; even when his muse seems to be headed to the moon or an imagined riviera, the little colloquialisms, quirks and reconciliations of the band’s journey always places one foot of the Arctic Monkeys in Sheffield. The glossy surface of The Car might seem to pitch it as far away from the steel city as the lads have ever been musically, but several lines still hint at their home.
Perhaps the most accessible song on the record is ‘Hello You’. It picks up the tempo with a catchy piano riff. There is one such poppy track on every second half of an Arctic Monkeys album; it is The Car‘s version of ‘Science Fiction’, ‘Snap Out Of It’, ‘Reckless Serenade’, ‘Cornerstone’, ‘Do Me a Favour’ and ‘Mardy Bum’. And it typifies Turner’s songwriting in that it doesn’t just offer up a track of single potential but also takes him back to the spirit of what shaped him.
The track sees the frontman yearning for his youth. He croons with a wink, “I could pass for 17 if I just get a shave. And catch some Zzzs.” But that wryness subsides and becomes sincerely nostalgic when he adds, “Why not rewind to Rawborough Snooker Club? Where can one find such an establishment?” It is a line that Turner has his grandparents to be thankful for.
Rawsborough Snooker Club is not a real place, but it does exist in the fiction of the film Tread Softly Stranger. The British noir caper was shot just eight miles from Turner’s childhood home. It comes with the decidedly Car-like synopsis: “An irresistible temptress causes trouble between two brothers when the more handsome charismatic ones turns up, leading to robbery and death.”
But the links are more than thematic and geographical for the recent goateed singer. As he explained in an interview with Mojo: “To be honest, I haven’t seen the film. But I know about it, because when they were shooting it my grandad got a job driving, moving lights around. And he told us about it.”
He continues: “When I was 16 or 17, I used to go with my grandad to the snooker club in Chapeltown. I couldn’t use the real name of the snooker club in the song – it’s too many syllables, isn’t it, but ‘Rawborough’ seemed like a better fit, it would be clunky otherwise.”
So, while the lyrics might be more obscure than we’re used to from Turner on the surface, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t lashings of northern depth to his exploration of memory lane and the potholes and pretty vistas along the way.
