Take Control

Album: Take Control (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • Soft Play's Issac Holman told NME the story of the song:

    "We'd just written 'Hypnotised' and I thought I didn't have any lyrics left so I started writing down lyrics that I thought were a bit s--t and throwaway. I just started shouting them to Laurie (Vincent, guitar) and he was like, I think it's wicked."
  • The lo-fi, '80s-style video sees Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent riding around on a tandem with an old skool ghetto blaster.
  • "Take Control" is the title track to the group's second album. They were still using their original name, Slaves, an appellation they changed to Soft Play in 2022. The Slaves name was meant to convey their hardscrabble upbringing filled with lots of menial labor, but of course working a thankless job doesn't compare to actual slavery. Despite criticism, they stuck with it for 10 years. When they finally changed it, they explained: "Feeling backed into a corner, our own pride caused us to fight for a name we weren't even sure we wanted anymore. It felt at times as if our band name had defined us and we were scared of what might happen if we changed it."

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