Jarvis' comments:
The kind of start point for The Wickerman was I got asked to write a piece for an English magazine called The World of Interiors, and they asked you for three things that had provided you with inspiration. And, of course, I was panic stricken 'cos I couldn't think of anything. And I was trying to think of things that had done that, and y'know, although obviously since the events that are described in [Wickerman] happened I've done a lot of things, and I've travelled around the world and all that kind of stuff. But for some reason [what occurred to me was] this time when I went on [..] an inflatable boat, and I went on a trip down the River Don, which is one of the rivers that runs through Sheffield. And it was really quite a magical day, because it was travelling through the city that I've lived in all my life, but seeing it from a different angle. And when you travel along the river and you're going with the current you feel like you're being taken somewhere, and I saw quite a lot of strange events.
One event that doesn't get mentioned in the song was this guy - stood at the side of the river - with an air rifle [..] and he was shooting it into the water, trying to shoot fish. And as he did it, he was going "stitch that, y'bastards". And it was just things like that, y'know, and that's always something that has really fascinated me: when you can find extraordinary events in very everyday circumstances. So I just got the idea of this river running through the city and the stories that had happened at various times, happening along the course of it. And also the river kind of providing a sense of continuity: a thread that runs through something.
[The] song has also got a sample in it which is from the film The Wicker Man, and I used to live on The Wicker, which is a kind of shitty street in Sheffield. So I thought: "Yeah, it's all coming together." [..] It all seemed to kind of mean something so I just made it into a story.
The demo version contains an interesting lyrical adjustment to the final version. "The flyover that takes the cars to cities" is instead: "The fly-over that takes the cars to Leeds".
Jarvis' comments: The kind of start point for The Wickerman was I got asked to write a piece for an English magazine called The World of Interiors, and they asked you for three things that had provided you with inspiration. And, of course, I was panic stricken 'cos I couldn't think of anything. And I was trying to think of things that had done that, and y'know, although obviously since the events that are described in [Wickerman] happened I've done a lot of things, and I've travelled around the world and all that kind of stuff. But for some reason [what occurred to me was] this time when I went on [..] an inflatable boat, and I went on a trip down the River Don, which is one of the rivers that runs through Sheffield. And it was really quite a magical day, because it was travelling through the city that I've lived in all my life, but seeing it from a different angle. And when you travel along the river and you're going with the current you feel like you're being taken somewhere, and I saw quite a lot of strange events. One event that doesn't get mentioned in the song was this guy - stood at the side of the river - with an air rifle [..] and he was shooting it into the water, trying to shoot fish. And as he did it, he was going "stitch that, y'bastards". And it was just things like that, y'know, and that's always something that has really fascinated me: when you can find extraordinary events in very everyday circumstances. So I just got the idea of this river running through the city and the stories that had happened at various times, happening along the course of it. And also the river kind of providing a sense of continuity: a thread that runs through something. [The] song has also got a sample in it which is from the film The Wicker Man, and I used to live on The Wicker, which is a kind of shitty street in Sheffield. So I thought: "Yeah, it's all coming together." [..] It all seemed to kind of mean something so I just made it into a story.
The demo version contains an interesting lyrical adjustment to the final version. "The flyover that takes the cars to cities" is instead: "The fly-over that takes the cars to Leeds".