Tumblr Question Reblog: Who writes most of the lyrics in the band? Do each of you contribute your own sections to each of the songs, or is it generally one person writing the whole lyric, and then sharing the sections out in the studio? Also, as we're on the subject, who wrote the line "I'm scared of you, but that don't mean a thing, you know I'm scared of dogs too"? By far my favourite lyric in the 10 years of Sonic Boom Six.

I write all the lyrics now. Nearly all the lyrics on the early stuff are mine but across the first few albums Ben started writing more stuff that we used. Yeah, I work closely with Laila and a lot of tunes we kind of write together so I’ll get a demo of a song with her singing dummy lyrics and write to those. There’s a lot of printing out and practising and going back and changing stuff as we go along.

There are songs on the first three albums where Ben wrote lots of lyrics, especially Arcade Perfect. He’d often start a song off about one thing and I’d give it a twist and take it somewhere more political and less personal which was a fun way of doing things… ‘While You Were Sleeping’, ‘September To May’, ‘Floating Away’, ‘Through The Eyes Of A Child’ and ‘Welcome To The City Of Thieves’ were all totally like that… basically songs Ben had written on his own and we added to lyrically to make the message of them relate to the rest of the Boom content. That was a really cool way of doings things and I miss it! It would be too simple to say Ben wrote the ‘song’ and chorus’ and I wrote the verses but that’s not far off. Ben wrote all the lyrics to ‘Northern Skies’ and ‘Face Forward’ and I just added the raps and he wrote ‘Flower’ and ‘Passing Through’, ‘Sister’ and ‘Not Yet’ on the BabyBoom EP which are great. On all the more rap stuff Ben wrote his own verses. There’s definitely other songs of mine where he added stuff but I can’t remember off the top of my head!

I really loved Ben’s ability to make a big chorus line in a song stick in your head and the way he crafted proper songs, he’s a very good songwriter. He was massively influential on me. He believed that you shouldn’t, if possible, write music then write lyrics over it… you should come up with the chorus, beat, vibe whatever with the chorus of the song so the song is there before you write the lyrics. That means the song’s lyrics and music are married together. For instance, if you think of something you want to write about (say kids involved so heavily in the punk scene squabbles that they miss what’s happening in the world that’s important) and then come up with a phrase to describe it, you should have the phrase on the tip of your tongue and then pick up the guitar and marry it to music. ‘Meanwhile, Back In The Real World’ was me trying to write a song with that concept. It was a song that sounded like Mouthwash but with a concept of song and strength of chorus that was like a Ben song and what he’d been pushing me to do.

I wrote the dog line. ‘Rum Little Skallywag’ just started off as a song I wrote myself on an acoustic guitar so it was quite personal but it fit on the album. That’s a funny lyric to pick up on! I think most people like ‘Knob Head’ on ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’ (not a line I ever thought people would pick up on) and people like ‘getting on together like chips and samosas’ from what I’ve heard.

Without starting to sound like Paul Simon on Classic Albums(!) or something, I think my favourite lyrics by us are ‘September To May’. That started as a song by Ben about people moving from Manchester and getting jobs in the city and I added the whole extra layer of fairweather student political activity which, for me, made it one of our best songs because it’s not something I recall ever hearing another song about. It’s an attempt of that marriage of the personal and the political that makes bands like The Clash get their message through on some songs like ‘Stay Free’. Not that ‘September To May’ is on that level but lyrically that’s a song I’m very proud of us for. I’m also very proud of the lyrics to ‘Jericho’ which are mine… ‘You seem surprised our race survived, you’d almost call us civilised’. Knowing I liked that line my girlfriend got an artist to put them in a framed picture for me. But I’ve only ever met one fan that liked that song!

On the new album I aimed to get rid of writing for a ‘target audience’ (i.e. like on ‘Meanwhile’ and ‘Bigger Than Punk Rock’ which are basically about the punk scene) and tried to write for everyday people. I wanted to stop second guessing what people were like who were listening to it. There is a song called ‘Gary Got A Gun’ that is going to really challenge people I think. I’m proud of that one too but that might be famous last words. We’ll wait and see...

September To May

Walking down Oxford road,
It seems that nothings changed,
Why does it leave me cold?
Must be more than Manchester rain,
Great place to piss a loan away,
But god forbid you’d ever stay.

Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You used to be a friend of mine)
Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You left that life behind)
Have you really changed so much since then,
Has it really been that long?
One minute you’re here and then you’re gone.

Oh when the locals quaint?
Oh weren’t the protests fun?
Second you graduate,
Join daddy’s firm in London,
Last seasons look inside the halls,
Was having Che Guevara hanging from your wall,
Three foot tall!
I guess those lies were just your size,
While you were dreaming of the money and sunny skies.

Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You used to be a friend of mine)
Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You left that life behind)
I thought that we were gunna smash that system,
Sing along to the Billy Bragg song,
One minute you’re here now you’re gone.

Took a little time to find out,
Took a little time to find out.
Took a little time to find out,
Took a little time to find out.

REVOLUTION EVERY SEPTEMBER TO MAY
I GUESS THE SYSTEM’S HERE TO STAY!

See you Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You used to be a friend of mine)
Come and go, come and go, come and go.
(You left that life behind)
Have I really changed so much since then,
Has it really been that long?
One minute you’re here and now you’re gone.