Album: Sideways to New Italy (2020)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Every Saturday, I wait for the footfalls in the hall
    Mother Mary at the wings and the ocean is upon us
    Still wanna still run nowhere out here, nothing moves at all
    Wood smoke, Joan and Quran, we light up by the loadin' sun


    This was inspired by singer-guitarist Fran Keaney's aunt. She hated the Rolling Stones song "Miss You" because her elder brother regularly played it as he got ready to go out on a Saturday night. She'd sit in the next room watching TV, nervous and worried that he would drink too much beer and maybe get into a fight. "I could see that so vividly in my head," Keaney recalled to Apple Music. "I thought that that would be a nice place to set a song."
  • Musically, the song started out as a country-punk number. That didn't sit right with the band, but when they tried revamping it into a '90s radio rocker, it didn't sound like the Rolling Blackouts. For a long time they were unsure how to tackle he tune until co-singer-guitarist Joe White introduced some cowbell "to give it that weird country disco swing." It was the last track they recorded for Sideways to New Italy so the band were all dancing around to the cowbell sound celebrating the end of the album.
  • New Italy is a small town in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales; this song is set in the similar settlement of Rushworth. "I spend a lot of time near Geelong," Healy told Uncut magazine. "I crave that quite country humdrum day-to-day life. That's a special thing; it's like nowhere else in the world. Not Tonight is set in one of these small towns, where an inhabitant thinks they're something special, much to the dismay of their long-suffering on-off partner."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Donny Osmond

Donny OsmondSongwriter Interviews

Donny Osmond talks about his biggest hits, his Vegas show, and the fan who taught him to take "Puppy Love" seriously.

Mike Love of The Beach Boys

Mike Love of The Beach BoysSongwriter Interviews

The lead singer/lyricist of The Beach Boys talks about coming up with the words for "Good Vibrations," "Fun, Fun, Fun," "Kokomo" and other classic songs.

Emilio Castillo from Tower of Power

Emilio Castillo from Tower of PowerSongwriter Interviews

Emilio talks about what it's like to write and perform with the Tower of Power horns, and why every struggling band should have a friend like Huey Lewis.

How "A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss" Became Rock's Top Proverb

How "A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss" Became Rock's Top ProverbSong Writing

How a country weeper and a blues number made "rolling stone" the most popular phrase in rock.

Bill Withers

Bill WithersSongwriter Interviews

Soul music legend Bill Withers on how life experience and the company you keep leads to classic songs like "Lean On Me."

Lou Gramm - "Waiting For A Girl Like You"

Lou Gramm - "Waiting For A Girl Like You"They're Playing My Song

Gramm co-wrote this gorgeous ballad and delivered an inspired vocal, but the song was the beginning of the end of his time with Foreigner.