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Song By Song Review Of Beady Eye's Album BE














Taken from the current issue of Q that features an interview with the band.

1. Flick of the Finger

A dramatically altered Beady: urgent Velvet Underground beat, blaring trumpets, fuzzy guitars and Liam proclaiming, "the future gets written today". The central riff's from a 2004 Liam/Gem demo called Velvet Building, because "it sounded like the Velvets, and it kept building."

2. Soul Love

The anti-Wonderwall, as Liam's loved-up strum is subjected to terrifying electronics from producer Dave Sitek.

Liam: The whole song fits with the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the baby going to the moon. We might have to just whack it on the internet - I'm up for getting arrested, or sued.

Soul Love was remodelled beneath a giant screen showing 2001: A Space Odyssey, Sitek says he didn't want to change its acoustic flavour

Sitek: But I thought, What if the guitar belonged to an astronaut who's never coming back? He's on the spaceship strumming, as his home planet get's smaller through the window. So he underlaid it with gently ominous atmospherics.

Sitek: I was certain the band would say, Cut this shit out, but Liam listens to it at full volume and says, Whoever tries to cut out that ending is a fucking copper.

3. Face the Crowd

A terrific, gamboling riff in an odd time signature.

Liam: Andy always comes up with the fucking bangers, which is weird.

Andy: It's about the bravado of being in a band. I'm pretty reserved, but when you're on stage you've got to own it.

4. Second Bite of the Apple

A bassline like Joe Jackson's It's Different For Girls amid more fab brass and un-Oasis guitar effects. "The word is up, if you're tough enough," yowls Liam, Scott Walker's The Old Man's Back Again (from Scott 4) was an in-studio inspiration.

5. Soon Come Tomorrow

"What kind of love burns holes in your heart?", wonders Liam, among worried acoustics, bewildering synths and a contrastingly hot way-wah guitar solo.

Andy: It's pretty personal, about something that happened to me and Shiarra.

6. Iz Rite

Liam: It's like The Beatles on ecstasy, like a George Harrison-y Hare Krishna thing. Gem wrote it - I'm not saying it's fucking girly or anything, but he's definitely in touch with his feminine side at the moment.

7. I'm Just Saying

Andy: My gift to the Morning Glory fans - us doing what we do very well.
Super catchy and, yes, Oasis-y, but with that value-added, future-now Sitek zing.

8. Don't Brother Me

Liam: It's about a brother, but I do have two - and they're both fucking idiots.

Step forward eldest brother Paul Gallagher. Another Liam acoustic strum, wich launches off into the deepest, darkest Sitekville on hypnotic synths and a sitar-y clang.

9. Shine A Light

Tremendous opening riff in the style of The Stooges circa 1969 propels this way-out-there rocker with added backwards guitar. The rhythm came from a jam over Captain Beefheart's Mirror Man. Not even remotely Dadrock.

10. Ballroom Figured

First recorded with full band, but when it came to Liam to overdub his voice, producer Sitek stripped it back to just acoustic guitar.

Gem: It sounded amazing, so we kept it like that. That's production too- taking everything off.

11. Start Anew

Another acoustic track with Liam's sweetest vocal ever.

Andy: Dave coaxed the Neil Young solo out of me, and it spins into an ending that doesn't quite resolve. We never push the epic button too hard.

Thanks to Mr. Sifter

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