Alex Kapranos: 'Edwyn Collins is a good laugh, but a serious writer in the studio'

Published on Monday 6 September 2010 13:01

AS I'VE been banging on about in every interview for almost a decade, Edwyn Collins is a big influence on my own writing, so… aye, it was pretty good, getting to do a tune with the big man. I was half-expecting to hear: "Now then, now then, young Alex Kapranos asked if we could fix it for him…"

Edwyn is a good laugh, but a serious writer, with no time for fannying about in the studio. The song was written very quickly. Edwyn showed us the chords and melody he had for a verse. He barred the chords while (his son] William strummed the strings. He described it as a "very Franz Ferdinand" set of descending chords which made me laugh, as the vocal melody was pure Edwyn.

I remember when we were cycling back that evening, Nick saying how distinctive his sense of melody is. Nick and I immediately thought of another melody, and that was over a similar (very Franz Ferdinand) set of chords that we'd been playing about with ages ago. Without words it already sounded like a chorus - it jumped an octave, changed to a major key, all that sort of stuff.

Edwyn's lyric seemed to be about facing daunting challenges and feeling unsure of how to overcome them. Since the musical mood of the chorus sounded optimistic, I wrote about how the presence of other people can bring out that ability to overcome in us.

I had the relationship between Grace and Edwyn in the back of my mind as I wrote - she's a powerful presence, a great person to be around. (Grace Maxwell is Edwyn's wife and manager.]

Using the word "honey" was a bit of a nod to (Orange juice track] Simply Thrilled Honey. God, I'm going on about this too much. It's just a tune…

We set up in the studio, played through it a couple of times and recorded.

There are a couple of overdubs, but the song is pretty much as we played it live, minutes after we wrote it. That almost never happens on records any more.

My favourite memory of the session was Grace recounting a story of how Edwyn refused to get on a tour bus because the NME had given Rip It Up a bad review.

He replied: "What you have to remember is, back then I was only 21 and very, very pretentious."