Nine Months On Fire

click for lyrics

This was the Tinyfish album’s problem child. When the song was written, we all felt really good about what had been produced (some fantastic bass playing by Paul and some equally evocative melody work on the guitar by Jim). It was high fives everywhere yet, try as we might, the fekkin’ thing always came out sounding a little flat and lifeless when we recorded it. The song went through several arrangements, endless re-mixes and overdubbing before we realised we had left Jim’s guitar out. Doh!

Sure enough as soon as Jim added his parts (matron), the song just sprang to life and things began to sound an order of magnitude better. This song marked a turning point for us as a band and I think it was also the track which helped us to define the sound of the album as a whole (big guitars, sweeping vocal pads and quick changes in dynamic).

Look out for the secret message embedded in the song.

Simon

I always wondered what would happen if the go-ahead, entrepreneurial Thatcherite spirit was applied to the discovery of the occult. And this wanker gets exactly what he deserves.

And Simon is wrong - it's not this song on the album which contains the secret of life.

Robert

Stole letters from the Vatican bookcase
Made copies of the Torah in black
Turned Buddhist just to talk to the contact
Kept running all the way - I was nine months on fire

Each meeting is a piece of the puzzle
Each person is a turn of the key
Keep fitting pieces into the picture
And as - for me -
I was nine months on -

things we're not meant to know
each creature has its price
My life was wrapped 'to go'
no-one knows me,
no-one knows me by now

Still bleeding from the scars of the Circle
No lawyer ever worked me like this
Big secrets need a bigger reminder
Each meeting which was sealed -
I was nine months on fire

and since my father died
when snow fell all around
blood scalding both my eyes

That day I swore to Daddy
death would not take me too
Long journeys on a longer road

I wish I'd chosen sooner
where life might find a way
then he would still be here today

And then the books,
the endless words,
a million truthful lies
I journeyed to
their ancient home
an underground museum

Torn open on the rack
Thorns draw the dark designs
blood roaring black - in my eyes
something is coming now
drawn by the taste of soul
slips in beside - with a sigh

lover in the deepest way that I know
promises to me
"when two together lie
the two don't have to die
there is a third - feeding"

now you know the final truth
you cannot leave alive
you don't know me -

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