I Grieve


Last update: 12th September 2005

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Notes

This track first appeared on the soundtrack to the film "City Of Angels". It is thought that a different version will be on 'Up'.

Extra production work was done on this track by Stephen Hague.

The Virgin press release states that "The first rawness of grief and the moving on are experiences gently touched in 'I Grieve'."

Richard Chappell on the production, "The way that track ended up was very much Stephen. The way we'd worked on it, it was very dark, even on the 'up' section. There's one loop that remains from that, the drum loop that comes in and out. Stephen worked with a programmer called Chuck Norman and they got the rhythm track to happen the way it does. We did a mix of this track for the movie City Of Angels a couple of years before, and Stephen heard it and wanted to have another go at it. So we let him and it ended up on the album."


Peter's Comments

"I was thinking about songs as emotional tools. And I thought, 'What don't I have in my toolkit that I might appreciate?' And a good grieving song, I didn't have. At 52, you know, I've had a couple of friends who have died, and my brother-in-law the year before last of skin cancer, and then my Dad is 90. So as a young person, you know it's there, but you pretend, you certainly act like it isn't. But at 52, it's on the table."

"I think when you have a youth culture that's running away from death, it inevitably leads towards death, as opposed to cultures where they run to death and accept it as part of life. You know, I grew up on a farm where you saw animals dying and animals being born. It seemed to have a place there. I think then you have a better chance of being more alive. It's my theory."

"Now, here's an interesting point to consider. Death is instantly perceived as a depressive subject. But it doesn't have to be. Take, for example, if you live in a dominant youth culture that pretends death doesn't exist, you end up going directly toward it. But if you face it head-on and accept death as a part of the life cycle, which so many other cultures do, then you live life more fully. As you get older, you have to put physical life and its eventual end into perspective. Fearing death doesn't enhance life, it feeds into feelings of dread."

"Aging and death, in a way, are to us much like sex was to the Victorians -- unmentionables. And I think other cultures where they're more present seem more alive."

"There's a consciousness about death now that I didn't have in my twenties or thirties. I know people who have died and certainly my parents are getting on, and yet I'm lucky enough to have it all over again with my young son. I feel much more comfortable in my skin in my fifties than I did in my forties, when it was much more of a struggle."

"Death was never taboo to me. Growing up on a farm where you see animals born and dying all the time, it seems to have a place in life rather than be one of the great unmentionables."