Album: Re-Animator (2020)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This proggy, synth-heavy, slow-burner originated from an advert that frontman Jonathan Higgs heard. He told Apple Music it had this "really slow triplet-y synth thing," which he tried to re-create, but it went wrong. However, Higgs still liked the end result: "This really slow 6/8 feel. And then it goes double-speed for the chorus."
  • Lyrically, the song finds Higgs crying out for acceptance.

    Can you love me?
    More than the planets


    Higgs is struggling with romantic love, so he resorts to a love of nature and natural things. He explained it's "a song about calling out to be loved, feeling unworthy and finding the love of the universe instead."
  • Higgs admitted to Apple Music the lyrics are "really ridiculous." He explained they were some of the last ones he wrote for Re-Animator, and realizing much of the record was quite somber, he "threw all of my fun into this last song, so that there is that color on this record."
  • "Planets" is the third single released from Re-Animator. The album finds Everything Everything operating on a more instinctive level than past releases. "It's full of beautiful human experiences - love, death, sex, birth, life," bassist Jeremy Pritchard told Uncut magazine. "This exploration is over the songs. Our last two albums was steeped in social-political machinations and we just got tired of carrying all that around. There's more of an ease about this one."
  • Higgs directed the bizarre video, which features a lip-synching chimpanzee puppet during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown. He explained it focuses on a primate caught up in an existential dilemma as he compares his relative insignificance to the universe.

    "I kind of wanted it to be like Carl Sagan-like, Cosmos, '70s sort of slightly crappy space stuff," Higgs said. "And the monkey just seemed to fit in in sort of a 2001: A Space Odyssey kind of way. There's some kind of deep connection between the planets and monkeys! So it was really as simple as that."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Allen Toussaint - "Southern Nights"

Allen Toussaint - "Southern Nights"They're Playing My Song

A song he wrote and recorded from "sheer spiritual inspiration," Allen's didn't think "Southern Nights" had hit potential until Glen Campbell took it to #1 two years later.

Richard Marx

Richard MarxSongwriter Interviews

Richard explains how Joe Walsh kickstarted his career, and why he chose Hazard, Nebraska for a hit.

Commercials

CommercialsFact or Fiction

Was "Ring Of Fire" really used to sell hemorrhoid cream?

John Doe of X

John Doe of XSongwriter Interviews

With his X-wife Exene, John fronts the band X and writes their songs.

Yoko Ono

Yoko OnoSongwriter Interviews

At 80 years old, Yoko has 10 #1 Dance hits. She discusses some of her songs and explains what inspired John Lennon's return to music in 1980.

Loreena McKennitt

Loreena McKennittSongwriter Interviews

The Celtic music maker Loreena McKennitt on finding musical inspiration, the "New Age" label, and working on the movie Tinker Bell.