Lifeboats

Album: A Hundred Million Suns (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • Frontman Gary Lightbody explained this song to the Irish public broadcaster RTE: "This is a dream I had about a tree that stretched out like veins in all directions, up and down and out and across and ended up looking like dark cracking ice and from above it made the shape of me and someone which got a bit frightening. Normally I forget my dreams but I wrote that one down."
  • Lightbody told RTE about one of the inspirations for this song: "Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals is a hero of mine and he is a master of abstract and colorful imagery and I guess he inspired the approach I had to 'Lifeboats.' My songs in the past are rooted in very much in the real but on this record I finally broke away from that pattern and looked to my dreams and slightly skewed imagery rather than relying on specifics."

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