Album: In It For The Money
Year: 1997
. . .
Determined to prove that their instant success — in the U.K, of course — with I Should Coco wasn’t fluke, Supergrass reportedly turned down an offer from Steven Speilberg to become the 1990s version of the Monkees, a factlet that even when sourced back to an old SPIN Magazine article, I still don’t quite believe.
That said, it was probably the best decision for all involved, as their excuse was that they wanted to work on the songwriting for their second album, 1997’s ironically-titled In it For The Money, which I’ve always liked better than I Should Coco, and would have definitely suffered — or maybe never have come out — had their attention been split that much.
In any event, there were a bunch of great songs on In It For The Money: the building chant of the title track, the punk-pop of “Richard III,” the glam stomp of “Going Out,” but I’m going with the anthemic “Sun Hits The Sky,” which puts all of their strengths together.
Opening with a fuzzed-out guitar riff from Gaz Coombes, augmented by an organ from his brother, Robert — who wasn’t officially part of Supergrass in the way the Christine McVie wasn’t officially part of Fleetwood Mac on Kiln House, even if he got co-songwriting credits — and bassist Mick Quinn and drummer Danny Goffey going big.
I know a place where the sun hits the sky
Everything changes and blows out the night
Everyone knows why my tongue can’t be tied
Cause I want to live where the sun meets the sky
It gets even bigger and more anthemic as they soar into the chorus, guitars and organ and bass all competing for space with Gaz Coombes’ vocals.
I am a doctor, I’ll be your doctor
I’m on my way, you won’t come down today
Live for the right things, be with the right ones
Or they’ll hold you down, they’ll turn your world around
It’s probably too much to assume that this is some kind of Doctor Who reference, as the late 1990s was the ebbest of ebb tides for the character, but at the same time, why not? What is an absolute fact is that during the long instrumental break after the second chorus, there is a long, very long — Rick Wakeman-length — synthesizer solo by Robert Coombes, and somehow it sounds totally in place with the rest of the song, which eventually breaks down into a bass, organ and bongos coda, because why not?
“Sun Hits The Sky” was the third single released from In It For The Money, and while it didn’t do as well as the previous two — the aforementioned “Going Out” (#5) and “Richard III” (#2), it was their fifth straight Top Ten U.K. single, peaking at #10. Meanwhile, In It For The Money made it to #2 on the U.K. album charts while not even making a cuppa coffee here in the U.S. And in fact, your humble correspondent didn’t get it for nearly a year until after it came out, when it was found at the late-lamented Tower Outlet on Third Street in San Francisco, just a couple of blocks away from where they’d just broken ground for the upcoming Pac Bell Park, in case you wanna know how long ago this all was.
“Sun Hits The Sky” Official Music Video
“Sun Hits The Sky” Live on 2 Meter Sessions, 1999
“Sun Hits The Sky” Live in Glastonbury, 2004
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