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Home » 1997-1999, Info, Songs

Mezzanine

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 Mezzanine

mezzanine cover

Primarily Found On:

Mezzanine


Also Found On:

The links below will take you either to the Collector section of MASSIVEATTACK.IE, or to an external website – either amazon.com or discogs.com, where you can find out more about all the the album (s)/release (s) that this particular Massive Attack song appears on.

Chilled In The Sun


First Released On:

20th April 1998


Duration:

05:54


Variations/Remixes:

N/A


Credits:

Written by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall and Andrew Vowles

Produced by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles and Neil Davidge

See Mezzanine info section for further credit details by clicking here.


Sampled:

Mezzanine uses a sample from the song “Radioactivity” by Kraftwerk. It appears primarily on their 1975 release “Radioactivity”. It is not credited officially by Massive Attack.


Covered:

N/A


Vocalist(s):

Robert Del Naja and Grant Marshall


Lyrics:

3D:
I’m a little curious of you in crowded scenes
And how serene your friends and fiends
We flew and strolled as two eliminated gently
Why don’t you close your eyes and reinvent me
Daddy G:
You know you’ve got that heart made of stone
You should have let me know
You could have let me know
3D:
We’ll go ’till morning comes
And traffic grows
And windows hum
i>Daddy G:
Spending all week with your friends
Give me evenings and weekends
Evenings and weekends
3D:
I could be yours
We can unwind
All these half floors
All these half floors
You’d agree it’s a typical high
You fly as you watch your name go by
And once the name goes by
Not thicker than water nor thicker than mud
And the eight k thuds it does
Sunset so thickly
Let’s make it quiet and quickly
Don’t frown
It taste’s better on the way back down
I could be yours
We can unwind
All these half floors (x3)
Will lead to mine
We are we are… (sting me now)
We can unwind
All these half floors
All these half floors
Will lead to mine
Will see to
All these half floors
All these half floors
Will see to
All these half floors
Will lead to mine
We can unwind all our flaws
We can unwind all our flaws

History:

The title track from the album Mezzanine, went through many changes (roughly about five different varations that differed majorly from each other, none of which have ever been heard) throughout the production and mixing stages of the album. Gradually, Massive Attack became frustrated with the song during the mixing process and settled on the way it sounds now, not ultimately been satisfied with it but being forced to stop working on it. This also makes it probably the last song to be completed for the Mezzanine album.


Additional Info:

Mezzanine, the song, was responible for lending it’s name to the album, Mezzanine and not the other way around. Typically, Massive Attack have always left the naming of all their albums to the very end. 3D decided to name the album after the song because of the no man’s land or twilight zone or even a floor between floors (as the lyrics in the chorus would seem to suggest) the song embodies, which were the same qualities that the album, Mezzanine embodied as a whole come it’s completion time.


Live Appearances:

Mezzanine was first played live at the Olympia in Dublin, Ireland on 15th April 1998. Since then, it has become a near permanent fixture to the live setlist in all subsequent tours. It’s live arrangement is typically the same as the regular album version with both 3D and Daddy G (except for when he was absent for some of the North American 2006 tour) performing live vocals.

There is a distinct possibilty that the opening intro song of the 1997 tour was one of the earlier versions of Mezzanine, as indeed it contained a few lyrical lines (”Give me evenings, Give me weekends”) that would eventually make their way onto the finalised Mezzanine track.


Quotes:

3D on both the naming and recording process behind Mezzanine – “The track we called Mezzanine [was named] quite a long time ago but it changed shape quite alot over the last six months. In fact, we completely reinvented it about five times, out of frustration” [Mezzanine Interview Disc - March 1998]

3D on the meaning behind Mezzanine – “Slightly confusing when you feel like you’re in two places at once, one is an altogether more exotic place and the other is the reality where you struggle to find a grip” [Vox Magazine – May 1998]

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