Annotations: Born With The Century

This is one of my favourite songs that I've ever written. It was INSPIRED by some of the people we interviewed on a project i did about old people being discharged from hospital. You'd see them in the wards being treated like imbeciles and trussed up in paper nighties and drips, then when the interviewers went to see them at home they'd come back with amazing stories of all the things they'd done in their lives. It was also written about the thought of my own grandparents having a whole life before i was born, and finally as a sort of reposte to "Help The Aged" by Pulp, which i thought was rather a weak attempt at a huge subject.

It was first recorded on Home Taping Is Killing Music, and it was pretty obvious to me that it should be a single (not, however, to the record buying public), but with a BAND. Me and Rob and Tim thus recorded it in what became the first Validators sessions back in July 1998. It sounded ACE and Tim suggested we carry on and do a whole album... and so we spent the next year so doing.

It was released as a single but nobody really bought it, so we ended up putting it on Say It With Words too. Since then I've played it every now and again, but i tend to avoid it as it's five minutes long, and that's a large chunk of a set to invest in a single song! We haven't played it with The Validators since we went down to a single guitar, but hopefully one day it'll come back. I think this is the song I'd most like somebody else to cover!