Dirt On The Bed

Album: Pompeii (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Dirt On The Bed" is the opening track of Cate le Bon's sixth studio album, Pompeii. The Welsh singer-songwriter worked on the album during the first wave of the COVID-19 in a Cardiff Victorian terrace owned by Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys. She had first rented the house from her fellow Welsh musician years earlier.

    "I had all these plans to go plans to go to a remote location, like Chile or Norway," Le Bon explained to Uncut magazine. "Because of travel bans, I ended up in a house I used to live in 15 years ago. I knew where the light switches and mirrors were, and I started thinking about all the other stuff stored inside you, without you realizing. That's what 'Dirt On The Bed' is about, returning to a place and having two points of perspective on a period of time."
  • Le Bon performed most instruments on Pompeii herself while alone in Rhys' house. Once lockdown began to ease, she was joined by her longtime collaborator/co-producer Samur Khouja for sessions in Cardiff. "Dirt On The Bed" was the first song they started working on. "It's pretty linear, but it blossoms in a way that becomes more frantic," she told Apple Music, "which was in tune with the lockdown in a literal and metaphorical sense."
  • Le Bon played synthesizer, guitar and bass on the track, and the Welsh musician Stephen "Sweet Baboo" Black played the saxophone. Sweet Baboo has also played with Gruff Rhys and Slow Club, and has released several albums of his own.

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