Songfacts®:

• This tale of the dark side of horse racing features Sheffield singer-songwriter Richard Hawley. Frontman Guy Garvey told the New Musical Express: "Richard and I met properly when we did this gig together over in Nashville for a well known brand of whiskey and we became firm friends. Then last year we went to the races together and I had the idea that we should do a song together for the album. I wrote this song, 'The Fix' which sounds a bit like something Cole Porter might have done. We sort of play two crooks in it really. I think Richard was surprised initially when he came by the studio but it worked really well, I think."
• Garvey in an interview with The Sun March 14, 2008: "Me and Hawley went over to Tennessee and did a gig with Frank Black who is one of my heroes. Hawley asked me to duet on the Pixies tune, 'Cactus.' We became great friends playing battleships on the plane, halfway across the Atlantic. We were on opposite sides of the cabin shouting. 'E5, miss!' Every time you get on with a musician you say 'We should do something'. But with Rich he's a man of his word. He came over and we threw all the guitars on it and over a month I wrote the lyrics. Then he came down and sang his part."