When We Were Young

Album: Progressed (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • The second single by the British Pop group Take That from their first EP, Progressed, features Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow on lead vocals. The song was released to radio on July 11, 2011 and made available as a digital download in the UK on August 22, 2011.
  • The tune also serves as the theme song for the Paul W.S. Anderson directed film adaptation of The Three Musketeers. The song was written after Take That watched a private screening of the movie. Gary Barlow stated: "The film is visually so rich and beautiful that our main challenge was to then match it musically. We've returned to guitars, real pianos and a conventional song structure to achieve this. We also thought that the Musketeers reminded us of ourselves."
  • The Paul Gore directed music video was shot over two nights in black and white and features Take That singing the song in a vacant, post-show Wembley arena after performing their Progress Live concerts.
  • Gary Barlow told the story of the song on his website: "We were all at Rob (Williams)'s house in LA, we were spending a week there getting Progressed as finished as possible before tour rehearsals started. We were invited to see a screening from an English director to a film called The 3 Musketeers. We'd been to see X-Men only a few days earlier and wondered if one film was enough! We went along anyway and all loved it. The superwarm and beautiful 3D gave us all a directional idea. To retreat back to acoustic guitars, strings and piano for a song!!! We went up to Rob's and got cracking. By the end of the day we had 'Young.' We demoed and took it home for Stuart Price to start work. We did guitars, piano and kit at my studio while Stuart worked on the synths. We also spent ages doing lots of vocals to give it one last try at being a boy band! It feels like a hint to where TT land when approaching their next studio album. Back to real instruments with less tempo and lyrics with an emotion edge."

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