My Juvenile

I guess that particular song I wrote to my son. It was one of the first songs I wrote for this album. I bought a clavichord, which is a plucked string instrument from medieval times. It’s quite unusual because when you press the notes you can keep on pressing them and make it do vibrato. So it goes like, "Drrrrung ung ung ung ung..." That kind of stuff. I wrote it on that and had already sung the vocals that Antony’s singing there. So we ended up for whatever reasons in my cabin in the mountains, and I asked him if he would replace those vocals. Because it’s sort of a conversation with myself, about my teenage son and how proper mad it is for grown-ups to let go of their children. For me it’s really like slapstick comedy, because they’re really good about it, but the parents are really clumsy, they just don’t know how to let go. So Antony’s kind of being Jiminy Cricket and I’m Pinnochio. And he’s saying, "You did your best, don’t worry about it, your intention was pure, you meant the best possible way." So that’s how it ended up.

XFM interview, April 2007