Draw The Line

Album: Draw The Line (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the title track from English singer-songwriter David Gray's eighth studio album.
  • Despite his previous success, Gray wanted to escape on this album from a musical formula he felt was becoming stale. As a result he parted with his longtime collaborator drummer Craig McClune, as well as most of his other band members and recorded Draw The Line with a new backing band. Gray told The Irish Times August 8, 2009 of the thinking behind the title: "It's the end of one thing and the start of another. Because there was a chapter and it's ended and now there's a new one. But also it's like, 'don't cross this line!' It's confrontational, which is intentional. That's how I feel."
  • Gray recalled to The Daily Telegraph September 16, 2009 scribbling lyrics to this song on the back of his hand and on his trousers driving home from his studio. He explained: "I had to pick up the kids from a play day and I became a bit obsessed, there were loads of mums around and I just sat in the corner scribbling on the back of an envelope. I was ridiculously wired but that's where you want to be, that sort of altered state, the song just unlocked things. It's about staying alive, to not be curbed by what you have to wade through day in and day out. 'Draw The Line' is about escape, and that's what I needed in my music. It was time to take a wrecking ball to what was there and knock it down and start again."

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