Free Love Revival

15 minutes with The Last Shadow Puppets: interview during Sirius XMU Sessions, 2016.

Highlights:

2:00 - interviewer using the term “loosey goosey,” - does this tie the lyric in Adios Ta-Ra Ta-Ra to Alex?

4.37 Aviation began on Miles’ sofa in London with Alex picking the riff

8.58 Alex showed the idea of Miracle Aligner to Miles before he worked on it with Alexandra Saviour

12.52 Their main memory is listening to Perfect Day by Lou Reed when making TAOTU

Throughly - Alex giggling!!

Last night when my psyche's Subcommittee sang to me in its scary voice You slowly dropped your eyelids When true love takes a grip it leaves you without a choice

what I particularly love is the use of humorous imagery in order to describe something intimate

So, today I've wanted to discuss a really sensitive topic: big bodies of water in lyrics of Alex and Miles. They appeared a lot and not only in songs but also during interviews.

Usually the meaning is relationships too precious to name. I can feel the deepness of love when something is liquid in their songs. Something so bright and tender, something that deserves the world.

I'm almost 100% sure that my interpretation is correct, just want to show how beautiful the proves are.

1. Potion approaching

It's them that put me inside the reminder

That yours is the only ocean (yours is the only ocean)

That I wanna swing from

So, "yours is the only ocean I wanna swing from" = someone's love is the only thing Alex wants to experience

Yours is the only ocean

That I wanna hang on

= He wants that relationships to be lasting

*In my head "Potion approaching" is about the kind of love not accepted by society, so lyrical hero has to choose some girl over the true one. Just to deal with pressure — but he is at least true to himself

2. Walk on the ocean

I wanna walk on the ocean...

I wanna cause a commotion

Miles yearns for love and is ready (even wants) to accept the consequences of it.

*Would it be so hard for him with a girl? I don't think so. Definitely a song about reconciliation with himself, accepting and being free from prejudice

3. Piledriver Waltz

If you're gonna try and walk on water

Make sure you wear your comfortable shoes

= love me only if you're ready to get through the difficulties of it

*Can't talk about the song not mentioning the context. "Submarine", for which Piledriver Waltz was written, is a coming-of-age movie. It shows us a person, who falls in love for the first time, dreaming too much and finding someone special. Reading the scenario could really be a retrospective for Alex. So the song, as I think, is a description of Turner's feelings at the beginning—awkward and unsure but too strong to give up

4. The dream synopsis

...I’m surrounded by the ocean

I get a feeling, I start running

Don’t really know why I am running

That's not as easy to crack. Yeah, Alex talks about his dreams. Yes, It can be just something that visited him during sleep time. But our dreams are a projection of day thoughts, right? Also ocean could be added later.

If we think about the ocean as about love, here is the meaning: "I found myself deeply in love but got scared, tried to hide it and ran away. Don't really know why I did it"

* "The dream synopsis" is extremely Milex song. Troubles with management if they're found (would be extremely strange to say something like that about relationships with Taylor), you can carry much more [pints] than I can (also doesn't seem to be about a girl). And, honestly, let's remember all the times when in line "It was you and me and Miles Kane" Alex haven't sung "Miles Kane" but looked at Mi with the softest heart eyes

5. The interview in Belgium

In this specific interview at 2:23 Alex starts to speak about how bad he writes when there are big bodies of water next to him. Of course, It could be just a phrase but what about the body language? Eyes locked on Miles like there IS a subtext. Miles nodes like he understands something differently. Right after the interviewer asked them about living together in Los Angeles! Alex says that they "both fell in love during that time" which made Miles look extremely happy.

So, translating to human language for you: "I can't write good enough when I'm finally happy in stable relationships". Artist should be miserable. That's what they say, right?

6. There'd better be a mirrorball cover art

"There'd better be a mirrorball" is such a bittersweet song. I love it by every inch of my heart. It's so full of tender feeling, love slipping through words but so blue at the same time. I still wonder which events led to writing this definition of warm sadness. I just assume that "Mirrorball" is also for Miles— as every Turner's love song.

And what can we see as the single cover art? Water. Love and difficulties that it brings.

7. Hiding tonight

I'll probably swim through a few lagoons

I'll have a spring in my step

And I'll get there soon

To sing you a happy tune, tomorrow

And you better bring a change of clothes

So we can sail our laughing pianos along a beam of light

But I'm quite alright

Hiding tonight

In one of his most confessional moments, Alex promises that one day they will both "walk on the ocean". Notice the similarities with "Sculptures of anything goes" outro, where he'll "sing a tune twizzling round an umbrella "

8. Four out of Five

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Come on in, the water's lovely

An invitation to a sheltered world...

9. See you on the water

Staring at a lonely sun

A vision of what's yet to come

Now that it's all said and done

I'll see you on the water

We don’t talk enough about this photo from the EYCTE booklet…

It’s not a posed shot where a photographer has asked them to stand close together…

It’s not a shot where there’s lots of people around them, so they need to stand close together to hear each other…

It’s a shot where the photographer has captured a split second - Miles taking a sip of drink, Alex not looking at the camera, on a hot, sunny day in a garden with plenty of room to have your own personal space. Yet, they are so close - Miles might even have his arm round Alex…

It’s a moment that they look like a couple. They need to be touching despite the heat. If Alex’s head hadn’t been looking away, it would look more coupley. If he was looking at Miles, it would look intimate…

Alex on a Mission [X]

I mean c'mon now.. How can someone explain this behaviour?

(Watch people saying "tHeY WeRe On Dr*Gs" and all that nonsense)

I think that some of us were surprised that after a couple of albums without mentioning any pronouns in songs that Miles included several references to she or her in the Sunlight In The Shadows album.

After many (many) listens, sometimes things just click in my head, so I thought I'd share.

Disclaimer - these are my thoughts only. I have no facts. I don't know Miles to ask if this is the correct interpretation. Please don't show any hate. If you don't like this type of post, please don't read under the cut.

"I don't need any reasons" (to feel this kind of love)

"cause I believe it was destiny" (insert here the influence of his newborn spiritualism)

The perfectly presented version of Alex Turner is Mr. Snarl. THE costume he can't escape. He rules over that miniature palace and all its treasures while Al Turner is building models, dreaming up futures Mr. Snarl could never imagine. And Al wears a white suit...

The backstage setting and presence of those floodlights remind me of another music video from two years before, with another white suit:

Nobody is talking enough about this video at the beginning, when our Alex walks behind our Miles and spanks him.

I love this little moments. I'm finding so many little moments that people don't talk about.

It's the way Miles Looks at Alex and the way Alex Smiles at Miles.

That's their thing and it sickens me.

My gosh anon, it'll literally soon be a year since this ask 🙈. I'm so sorry! I've actually not checked my inbox until my comeback last week, so I truly didn't see it. But it really made me smile that despite me basically disappearing, you still wanted to come in here and write this 💛 It's so wonderful to see that my posts still reach people and even validate their own feelings about the songs (great minds, indeed! Just another confirmation that we've correctly broken "the code" 😌).

I hope maybe you manage to see this at some point despite it being so long since you asked.

But back to the actual message - oh my god, yes. It felt incredible actually. I know interpretations are... Just that. Interpretations. And I've made quite a few wild assumptions here and there, for the fun of it. But Star Treatment always felt like one of the most convincing Miles songs to me. So having him literally sing (/recite) it to him. Finger pointing and all, and so goddamn solemnly too. I'm afraid he just sealed the deal right there and I'll never change my mind about this being a Miles song.

(HE! POINTS! AT! MILES! FOR! DOLLS LIKE YOU AND ME! Come onnnnnnn. He serenades in his direction from that point onwards, COME ONNN)

Also - that Star Treatment outro within I Wanna Be Yours almost killed me the first time he ever did it, and to this day whenever I go back to listen to it my heart clenches in my chest because there's something so vulnerable & achingly heartfelt about it (I may be projecting, but that's also what I'm here for, so 🤷🏻‍♀️) - so that moment with Miles was double murderous for me.

Oh. And just to make this answer even longer - through all the time that's passed from me quickly scribbling down those Star Treatment thoughts, I've had so many other thoughts about certain lyrics, and I'm almost surprised I missed them in that initial post (but that's how good art works. You always discover new layers. And other people's contributions have definitely helped me get to new places with it too). Maybe I'll make an update one day.

(For now though: one of those things is interpreting "Rocket-ship grease down the cracks of my knuckles" as an innuendo, basically. And I have to say... I see it. I see it even more after the way he chose to gesticulate during that line in Dublin 👀.... It's a bit of a stretch, because the gesture's vague enough and he does lots of random things with his hands when he sings. But... I don't know. Worth noting. To me) (Or maybe I just have a dirty mind).