Album: Sense (1992)
Charted: 31
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Just a taste of love will leave you wanting more, as Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds discovers in this song. He knows because when he's with the woman he loves, it all makes sense.

    In Lightning Seeds tradition, it sounds like a very sweet love song but has a layer of ambiguity. Love is addictive, and when it goes away, that's a problem. "It comes and goes, leaves me on a bed of splinters," he sings.

    "The bittersweet is what kind of defines it for me when I'm writing a tune," he explained in a Songfacts interview. "Generally, if it's got that to it, then I think it's a Lightning Seeds tune."
  • This was the first song Ian Broudie wrote with Terry Hall of The Specials. They collaborated again to write "Lucky You" for the next Lightning Seeds album, Jollification. "Terry and I have been great friends for a long time, and I tend to write better with people I know," Broudie told Songfacts. "I rarely work with people I don't know, certainly these days. When you're young, you kind of have to."
  • For all intents and purposes, The Lightning Seeds are an Ian Broudie solo project. His main collaborator in the '90s was Simon Rogers, who played various instruments on the Sense album and also produced it. Rogers and Broudie started working together on the 1988 album by The Fall, I Am Kurious Oranj.
  • The music video takes place inside a pyramid, like the ones found in ancient Egypt. Except this one has a (malfunctioning) elevator. It doesn't make much sense, but maybe that's the point.
  • The harmonica in this song comes from Mark Feltham, who shows up on scores of albums by big-name British artists, including Oasis, Talk Talk, and Rory Gallagher.
  • Terry Hall re-recorded "Sense" for his debut solo album, Home, in 1994.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Guy Clark

Guy ClarkSongwriter Interviews

Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett are just a few of the artists who have looked to Clark for insightful, intelligent songs.

Rupert Hine

Rupert HineSongwriter Interviews

Producer Rupert Hine talks about crafting hits for Tina Turner, Howard Jones and The Fixx.

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

Jethro Tull

Jethro TullFact or Fiction

Stage urinals, flute devices, and the real Aqualung in this Fact or Fiction.

Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles

Timothy B. Schmit of the EaglesSongwriter Interviews

Did this Eagle come up with the term "Parrothead"? And what is it like playing "Hotel California" for the gazillionth time?

Stan Ridgway

Stan RidgwaySongwriter Interviews

Go beyond the Wall of Voodoo with this cinematic songwriter.