HIGHER POWER

The band dropped the "Dynamite" from their name, and some would say from their music as well for this LP. The band's last bow for Sony and a commercial disappointment, but not without it's moments (and for our purposes, chock full of samples).

Special thanks to Toni in London.

GOT TO WAKE UP

"Should I..." from "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" by The Clash (1982).

Maniacal laugh following the line "...should I get up and go?" is Joe Strummer from "This Is Radio Clash" by The Clash (1981).

Features a sample of "Shoorah Shoorah" by Betty Wright.

HARROW ROAD

Harrow Road = a street in London

"I saw Elvis washing clothes...so many stories being told..." = reference to rash of "Elvis sightings" in recent decades "...powder on his nose..." = cocaine

" you see over the cemetery wall, from the bridge about to fall" = refers to a bridge on Ladbroke Grove (near the junction with Harrow Road) which crosses the canal. From the bridge you can see into the old, Victorian "Kensal Green cemetery"

"..those men working day and night, they'll never finish at all" = refers to rebuilding work carried out on the bridge mentioned above. These works lasted for a long time and caused traffic mayhem in the area for months.

"since you were young, until you're old..." = self-reference by Mick(?). He lived at the farthest end of Harrow Road during his youth and now lives a little further up the road.

"Wait a minute, I've got my little ukelele here to really fully illustrate what I mean..."

"You've Got Me Swingin'" by Peter Sellers.

A phrase in spanish in the middle of the song, during a "break". It's a poem by Rafael Alberti (an andalusian poet) called "Los Angeles Belicos - The Angels of War", and I think it's the same Alberti wich is reading it.

The poem says: "Los ángeles belicos/ viento contra viento/ yo, torre de mando en medio" wich means "The angels of war/wind against wind/I, the command tower, in the middle"

LOOKING FOR A SONG

Contains a sample from "Just Get Up And Dance" by Afrika Bambaataa.

SOME PEOPLE

"Tittle tattle" and conversation loops in intro are sampled from "Eastenders". The character speaking (in the "tittle tattle" loop) is Pauline Fowler, played by the actress, Wendy Richards. A further sample in this song is also from "Eastenders", but this time it is the character, Dot Cotton speaking.

"Well personally I don't give a monkeys" - who could forget Pete
Beale?!!

SLENDER LORIS

The slender loris is a tailless primate native to Sri Lanka; the root for the word loris, the Dutch loeris, means "simpleton".

OVER THE RISE

Refers to Kensal Rise, an area of West London. If travelling from NW London, once you pass Kensal Rise, you reach the junction of Harrow Road and Ladbroke Grove.

"This battle fares like to the morning's war...Can neither call it perfect day nor night." John Gielgud reading from Shakespeare's "Henry VI Part III".

MOON

Richard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" from 2001: A Space Odyssey sampled in the intro.

Female 'high-pitched' singing taken from the "Star Trek" TV theme.

Various audio samples from U.S. manned space missions.

Lucan

Title refers to Lord Lucan:

"left my clothes on the beach and an empty bottle of wine" = refers to the only evidence Lord Lucan left behind, before his disappearance in the 1960s. He fled from his wife's London home, after killing the nanny employed to look after his children having (allegedly) mistook her for his wife. Lord Lucan has never been found and is now presumed dead.

Sleeve credits Heathcote Williams for a biography on "Lucan", presumably for the interview sample featured in the song discussing the murder of Lord Lucan's nanny.

LIGHT UP MY LIFE

This song is about Mick's daughter, Lauren.

HOPE

Contains a sample from "Alberto" by Leadbelly.