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Background to our Songs: Time Was Kind Again, KHT
Written by Jimmy
- Time was Kind Again is the penultimate track from our latest album King Henry’s Tears.
Lyrics: Jimmy started this as just the line, ‘when you’re 50 years old, well time’s a bit deep. You spend all of your time, just begging for sleep and for your children to keep safe until they’re a year older. But there in the corner of your mind is time.’ This is probably some mid-life crisis thing, but given that he was writing it at 6AM in the morning, he’s fairly certain it was just about the begging for sleep line. From there he decided to think about time from different ages – his daughters, at 15 and 17, are desperate to get older, his mom is just happy another day starts with sunshine. Somewhere in between is the wife/mother hoping ‘time would stand still.’
Musically: Andy and Ed sorted most of the music, Andy getting the melody right and Ed sorted out his Coldplay riff. Sophie plays a mean, scary cello that seems to be chasing you as you age. Milly came in and added some violin using Sophie’s line as a guide. The dual Jimmy-Andy chorus started because Jimmy could never hit his mark and come in at the right time. It did not escape the giggle and smirks of the band, that ‘no timing’ Jimmy sings lead vocal on a song about time.
Recommendations: If you like that small niche of songs about time with Jimmy as lead vocals, suprisingly you have two other songs to choose from. Big Old Bird off our second album and Strange Clock off our third. If you like Jimmy-Andy vocals together, we did that on the first album with Sandy in the Sleeping Bag. If you just like songs about time, well here’s a couple:
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- Bonnie Raitt, Nick of Time:
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- The Guess Who, No Time:
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- Libertines, Time for Heroes:
That’s it
Jimmy