(I Miss The) Tokyo Skyline

"It’s a lot of peoples favourite. It’s about being completely seduced by Tokyo. I think we all were when we first went there and we did the ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ video, it’s the first place we ever got a gold disc. I’ll never forget, we turned up at the airport at six in the morning and there were hundreds of people, we all looked behind us because we thought The Black Crowes were there or something. We realised they were all waiting for us, and thought, 'Fucking hell!' It was such an indelible scar. It’s the most alien culture I’ve ever been to, in a good way, and I’ve loved the feeling of safety. Whenever we go back there’s a special bond. The next album in particular is filled with travel and motion and other places, because you just get tired with your own environment. The overarching power of London on the culture of the UK gets wearisome sometimes. I think the music is really interesting on that track, we did the bare bones of James on the acoustic, and then there were kids running round and the usual stuff, and we were exhausted in the studio, so we said to Sean: 'Just fuck off downstairs Moore-o, put some noise on it.' We really needed sleep. So me and James were upstairs lying on the sofa, and then four hours later we go down and he’s got all these fucking leads and boxes, it’s like a Tangerine Dream studio from 1972, he said, 'I’m trying to make it sound like a Bullet Train.' So we thought, 'Alright, we’ll go back upstairs for another hour then.' There is a real magical quality to it. The violins actually sound Japanese. Japan occurs on the album [as a theme] a few times - 'As beautiful as the spring in Japan.'"

-Nicky Wire