I agree with the comments about how good this song is. Really underrated and hard to believe the by-the-numbers 'Place to Crash' was released as a single instead.
I remember reading a bit about the writing of this song in the book 'Feel'. The chorus originally had lines like 'in the fairgrounds and the coffee shops' IIRC in the soft-spoken bits that became 'a long long time ago'. I think the jist was that when you remember a relationship, you tend to visualise specific moments and places and remember them vividly almost like you're trying to relive it; then you have to catch yourself and face up to the reality that those people, at least as they existed and felt at the time, are dead - ghosts. I think there's also something of a double-meaning to the term, as Robbie/the narrator seems haunted by these memories and regrets about what could have been - he's become hollow and joyless, in essence a ghost himself.
It's interesting the way the song alludes to other heavenly bodies like stars and satellites towards the end. The way I see the 'satellite' line is that when we're young or in a particularly intense relationship we tend to idealise love and treat it as some amazing, other-worldly thing. The satellite is what's used to discover the mysteries of all the things in the universe we wonder at and don't understand. Now that the man is a hollow shell who's been burned by love, he's given up hope of ever trying to reach or understand these things - 'they're taking down our satellite'. 'I'll follow your star tonight' seems like a last desperate clinging to something out of reach and intangible.
I agree with the comments about how good this song is. Really underrated and hard to believe the by-the-numbers 'Place to Crash' was released as a single instead.
I remember reading a bit about the writing of this song in the book 'Feel'. The chorus originally had lines like 'in the fairgrounds and the coffee shops' IIRC in the soft-spoken bits that became 'a long long time ago'. I think the jist was that when you remember a relationship, you tend to visualise specific moments and places and remember them vividly almost like you're trying to relive it; then you have to catch yourself and face up to the reality that those people, at least as they existed and felt at the time, are dead - ghosts. I think there's also something of a double-meaning to the term, as Robbie/the narrator seems haunted by these memories and regrets about what could have been - he's become hollow and joyless, in essence a ghost himself.
It's interesting the way the song alludes to other heavenly bodies like stars and satellites towards the end. The way I see the 'satellite' line is that when we're young or in a particularly intense relationship we tend to idealise love and treat it as some amazing, other-worldly thing. The satellite is what's used to discover the mysteries of all the things in the universe we wonder at and don't understand. Now that the man is a hollow shell who's been burned by love, he's given up hope of ever trying to reach or understand these things - 'they're taking down our satellite'. 'I'll follow your star tonight' seems like a last desperate clinging to something out of reach and intangible.