The Trees (song)

Pulp

Jarvis

Side projects

Help

Site

Search


User rating:

9.7 out of 10
3 users have voted

(Login to vote)

Details

Credits

Includes a sample from Tell Her You Love Her written by Stanley Myers & Hal Shaper, which was used in the film Otley

Lyrics

I took an air-rifle, shot a magpie to the ground
and it died without a sound

Your skin so pale against the fallen autumn leaves
and no-one saw us but the trees

Yeah, the trees, those useless trees produce the air that I am breathing
Yeah, the trees, those useless trees; they never said that you were leaving

I carved your name with a heart just up above
Now swollen, distorted, unrecognisable; like our love

The smell of leaf mould and the sweetness of decay
are the incense at the funeral procession here, today

In the trees, those useless trees produce the air that I am breathing
Yeah, the trees, those useless trees; they never said that you were leaving

You try to shape the world to what you want the world to be
Carving your name a thousand times won't bring you back to me

Oh no
I might as well...
I might as well just go and tell it to the trees

Oh yeah, the trees, those useless trees produce the air that I am breathing
Yeah, the trees, those useless trees; they never said that you were leaving

Go and tell it to the trees, yeah
Go and tell it to the trees, yeah
Go and tell it to the trees, yeah
Go and tell it to the trees, yeah
Go and tell it to the trees, yeah

Jarvis' comments

That was the last song we wrote. I'd had the song we sample in it [Tell Her You Love Her by Stanley Myers and Hal Shaper] for about four or five years and wanted to write a song around it. I'd had loads of goes. We were getting to the end of the sessions, so we had one more go and we nailed it. I'd like to point out that I've never shot an animal with an air rifle! There was an air pistol at my granny's when I was growing up and I was allowed to play with it without any pellets in it. As soon as I got to an age where I might have wanted to go out and shoot creatures, it was hidden. So I've never shot even a magpie... even though they are one of my least favourite because they bully other birds and they spoil their nests and stuff like that. They're a bit of a pest actually.

The idea of the lyrics in that song is just [..] the idea of the trees being there and all the kind of human dramas that could happen in a forest: people meeting for an illicit affair or whatever, like that. But the trees are impassive to that. And the way that people will carve their name on the bark of a tree, thinking that's some kind of mark of permanence in a relationship, but then you go back a year or two later and try and read it, it'll be all like [twisted], because the tree doesn't grow in a linear way.

Promo video

Details here.

Alternative versions and remixes

The Trees (felled by I Monster)
The Trees (Lovejoy the no jazz mix)
The Trees (live at Birmingham Academy: October 2001)

Links

Related pages

Page last modified on November 05, 2009, at 11:36 PM