Hit Me Like That Snare

Album: Relaxer (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • This filthy psychedelic tune is about a person who goes to a sex hotel. Alt-J recalled the story of the song to NPR's All Things Considered:

    "This song came out of nowhere. We were in the studio and trying to work on something else, started jamming, and had written most of this song before we knew what had happened. It takes place in an imaginary sex hotel, and is meant to be a fun, carefree number."
  • Leather slings fall like oxygen masks
    We're going down, f--k my life in half


    The above lyric was inspired by what vocalist Joe Newman thought might be his last words on earth. While working on Relaxer, the Alt-J singer was driving to London from Southampton with his girlfriend when his car hit a massive puddle. "I thought I was going to plane or roll over," Newman recalled to Q magazine. "And I just shouted out, 'f--k my life in half!' Then I thought, 'Hmmm, that's a really good lyric.'"
  • The song did end up aquaplaning away from its original highway related source with Newman adding the line, "Family matters, couldn't agree more. This is my family, fisting me on the floor."

    Newman explained to Q Magazine the song is "about a person who goes to a sex hotel, a sex... space. Then they go into each room and experience it. In that line, the word fisting is bleeped out. We thought it would be funnier that way."
  • Moon Shaped Pool plays in the velvet cell
    Green neon sign reading "Welcome to Hell"


    The reference to Radiohead's album is because Joe Newman thought this song's guitar riff reminded him of the band's A Moon Shaped Pool track "Decks Dark.'"
  • Ichi, ni, san, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyu, jyuu

    The Japanese in verse two translates into English as "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10."
  • Despite being set in a sex club, there is an element of a political diatribe in the song's lyrical content.

    "It's about neo-conservatism," Joe Newman suggested to NME. "About the family being the most important thing. And me being like: this is my family, in the sex club… It wasn't directly referencing the political situation, with Brexit and Trump. But I think we were feeling a bit."

    "Both Gus and I come from quite middle-class backgrounds, raised under comfortable circumstances," he continued. "We escape into our music because it's fun, not because we hate our lives. But writing this song, I got a kick out of being hostile."

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