Track By Track: Loose Tooth – Keep Up

This song perfectly executes our songwriting ethos of collaboration. A Frankenstein of sorts, two separate songs, coming together to build one mega song. The sweet, soft melody that Luc paired together with mine and Etta’s punchy backup’s made for a tune that perfectly represents what Loose Tooth has to offer!

This was the first song that was written for ‘KEEP UP’. An offshoot from some of the heartbreak themes in ‘SATURN RETURNS’. Etta couldn’t help but pack one last punch to proverbial love rat that frequented our previous record!

This was the final track written for the album. We all knew that there was a song missing, that had an upbeat tempo and a catchy hook! Me and Etta wrote this one day from scraps of melody ideas that we had recorded on our phones, while we were waiting for Luc at rehearsal one day. It took about 10 minutes. Luc came in and added his final touches, and it was good to go! Easy as that.

Written by Luc one night on a songwriting weekend away after me and Etta went to bed. In the morning we awoke to a brand new song (Etta’s favourite) and worked through some of the phrasing and melodies together. This was the only song to come out of that trip, but was the first step into a more moody tone. I guess you could say it is about the daily grind, capitalism and the idea to slow down in life and not stress the small things!

Moving on, yet remembering your past are the themes in this song. A very personal song to the writer, yet allows the listener to create their own story within the lyrics. This song took the longest to write, with Luc continually finding different structures, until he finalised literally walking into the studio to record it. We still haven’t ever played this song together and complete… but we’ll figure it out.

We originally recorded this song for our first EP ‘Saturn Returns’, but decided that the recording did not quite hit the mark. We left this bad boy stewing in the oven over the past few years and couldn’t resist a chance to re-record and try again. Luckily this time it wrangled its way onto the record, and we couldn’t be prouder of this little track that brings up themes honesty, infidelity and basically deceitful lovers and the lies they make up in their head to justify their actions! Any ex-lovers of ours to be careful – you may get a song written about you one day when you least expect it!

I think every one of our ex-partners wonders if our songs are written about them… they probably are… but which song is for YOU! Basically, this song questions the actions and motifs of one of them and the frustration on our behalf for their lack of maturity and communication skills.

A song written in dedication to my sister. More infidelity. More frustration and anger at lovers being immature and mean. But nice to get things off your chest on behalf of another person sometimes. Did you notice the sax solo? Etta forced us to try this out, but sounds Bellissimo.

We got pretty poppy and upbeat in this one. Again themes of tiered relationships and our frustration within them. Me and Et wrote this on my bed one day then Luc whipped out his new baritone guitar for the first time and jangled around like no tomorrow. Our friend Dale Packard created the symphony of sax, adding more than a little lil sax appeal…

Etta’s lovely love song. I really love the way she used the lyrics in this song – very clever gal. It is about insomnia and not having it when you are lying next to the right person, awe. We definitely felt out of our comfort zone writing a song that had minimal hatred and crash symbols. It took a bit of time working out the relationship between the soft, airy verses and the more punk chanty chorus, but we like the outcome!

A little love and heartbreak song, written in a time of contemplation. What happens when you like a friend more than they like you? Sometimes you got to give them a little space to miss you, and they realise what they are missing. A nice lullaby to close the record.

Loose Tooth’s album ‘Keep Up’ is out now.