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Racecar Is Racecar Backwards is the debut full-length album by the British rock band, Reuben. It was recorded between July and November 2003, and was produced by Jason Wilcock at his home-made studio in Chobham.
[edit] Track listing
- "No One Wins the War" - 3.41
- "Horror Show" - 2.58
- "Stuck in My Throat" - 3.27
- "Oh the Shame" - 2.09
- "Fall of the Bastille" - 4.09
- "Freddy Kreuger" - 2.28
- "Tonight My Wife Is Your Wife" - 3.07
- "Eating Only Apples" - 2.03
- "Our Song" 1.56
- "Let’s Stop Hanging Out" - 2.54
- "Missing Fingers" 4.00
- "Song for Saturday" - 2.55
- "Moving to Blackwater" - 2.49
- "Wrong and Sorry" - 3.21
- "Parties Break Hearts" - 2.34
- "Dusk" 3.55
[edit] Personnel
- Jamie Lenman - Guitars, vocals, piano
- Jon Pearce - Bass, vocals
- Guy Davis - Drums
[edit] Additional musicians
- Nic Slack - Piano on 'No-One Wins the War'
- Neil Lancaster - 7-String guitar on 'Moving to Blackwater' and 'Freddy Kreuger'
- The Galaxy Quartet - Strings
[edit] Charts
[edit] Singles
[edit] Notable songs
[edit] Song For Saturday
- The main riff was made up on the spot by Jamie when the band's manager asked to hear their new song in soundcheck. The new song they were supposed to play was Eating Only Apples, but their manager was disappointed that the joke riff wasn't part of it.
[edit] Eating Only Apples
- Before making an appearance on this album, this song was first a b-side on the band's debut single, Scared of the Police.
- Originally called 'Tonight My Wife Is Your Wife', but Andy Ross from Food records was so upset when the name of the song was changed to something more relevant to the subject matter, the band promised to call another song 'Tonight...'
[edit] Stuck in My Throat
- The version of this song that appears on the album was re-recorded with the rest of the tracks after the single version was finished and before work on the album started, in order to meet the release deadline imposed by Integrity records.
- Both the single and album version are exactly the same tempo and can be played in perfect unison side by side.
[edit] Lyrics
- The line 'party hardy marty' in 'Parties Break Hearts' was lifted from the last scene in the film Scrooged, starring Bill Murray.
- Although the lyrics hadn't been finalised in early performances, the 'Hell Is for Heroes' line in 'No One Wins the War' was actually written a few weeks before the two bands toured together. The line was subsequently changed to something new about Hell Is For Heroes on most nights of the tour, and in fact most nights after that tour.
[edit] Cut songs
- Two tracks that were meant to be recorded for the album but were not completed after the drums and bass were laid down were 'Approaching By Stealth' and a new version of 'Alpha Signal Seven'. The tracks have now been lost.
- Also lost in the recording process was a potential b-side, provisionally entitled 'Hell', which was produced by slowing down the song 'Oh The Shame' to half speed from the string section onwards to 'hilarious' effects.
[edit] Miscellanea
- Only 1000 vinyl copies of the album were made, each one signed by all three members of the band whilst watching a live Metallica video at drummer Guy's house.
- The band had gone into the studio a few weeks previously and recorded every song they had (some 40 tracks) in two days for consideration for inclusion the album.
- The album's humorous name came from a conversation with Caretaker bassist Seb Carey about palindromes.
- All the strings on the album were recorded separately by the band's friend and Guy's former teacher Rupert Christie, who then sent the recordings on CD to the studio where they were integrated into the tracks.
- The members of the album team took it in turns to buy a loaf of bread each day for use with the studio's most important piece of equipment - the toaster.
- The first 3000 copies of the album went on sale with flawed covers - the inlay artwork didn't meet up in the middle, and they were printed on gloss instead of matt finish paper. These mistakes were corrected, and a serial number was added to the spine for all subsequent pressings.
- The guitar tuning on most of the songs on the album can be achieved by tuning your guitar to simple drop-D tuning and then tuning each string down one note, so the strings go C# G# C# F# A# D#. Horrorshow, Freddy Kreuger and Oh The Shame are in the down-tuned equivalent of normal E tuning.
- The artwork on all the singles released from 'Racecar was done at different times and put together by different people on each occasion, hence the slightly different style of each cover.
- The photo featured on the cover of the album doesn't feature Guy at all, it features Jon, Jamie and their old drummer Mark Lawton. The photo was from an old shoot and had appeared previously (minus skeletons) on the inlay of their first EP, Pilot.
[edit] External links
