Jarvis' comments:
I've always been fascinated by plants growing in places where they shouldn't really be - like weeds growing in cracks in the paving stones. For some reason I thought: "That's a bit like humans in a city - you're a natural thing but you're growing in this slightly hostile, crappy environment but somehow managing to survive." I started thinking about how most good music comes from people who are in shitty circumstances and then the Svengali comes along and makes all the money and the artist gets fucked off. Then there was the drugs connotation. There's a slumming-it mentality in our society which is going back to a Common People theme - people getting a buzz from scoring drugs off a council estate: "It's so authentic, I was in a real council house, and these people had tattoos and everything." It's like they've got real contempt for these people and they'll spit on them, but when they want some drugs or they wanna shag a prostitute they're OK.
And then there was the whole thing about weeds being considered to be weak things. You get called a weed in England in a school if you're supposed to be a weak person, and yet weeds, as far as i can see, are the most tenacious plants 'cos they grow in very hostile [places] - they'll grow in a little tiny bit of soil. I always like it when you're going down a street and you see a roof and there's this big bush growing off the top of it...
Jarvis' comments: I've always been fascinated by plants growing in places where they shouldn't really be - like weeds growing in cracks in the paving stones. For some reason I thought: "That's a bit like humans in a city - you're a natural thing but you're growing in this slightly hostile, crappy environment but somehow managing to survive." I started thinking about how most good music comes from people who are in shitty circumstances and then the Svengali comes along and makes all the money and the artist gets fucked off. Then there was the drugs connotation. There's a slumming-it mentality in our society which is going back to a Common People theme - people getting a buzz from scoring drugs off a council estate: "It's so authentic, I was in a real council house, and these people had tattoos and everything." It's like they've got real contempt for these people and they'll spit on them, but when they want some drugs or they wanna shag a prostitute they're OK. And then there was the whole thing about weeds being considered to be weak things. You get called a weed in England in a school if you're supposed to be a weak person, and yet weeds, as far as i can see, are the most tenacious plants 'cos they grow in very hostile [places] - they'll grow in a little tiny bit of soil. I always like it when you're going down a street and you see a roof and there's this big bush growing off the top of it...