Half the Truth

Album: Off With Their Heads (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • Kaiser Chief bassist Simon Rix told Drowned In Sound the story of this song: "It started with an idea we'd had for a while but was mainly written in the studio. We had one section but no idea where to take it. We tried out lots of different things, making stuff up and going round it again and again. (Co-producers) Mark (Ronson) and Eliot (James) were in the control room listening whilst we were playing in the live room. Then Mark came in and had an idea for a drum beat. After that we got a simple bass riff and Whitey played the cool guitar riff and it just grew from there."
  • Mobo winning British Hip Hop artist Sway raps a verse on this song. Rix explained in the Drowned in Sound interview that Sway came to the studio looking for Mark Ronson but he wasn't there. He added: "Just after he left we were talking about 'Half The Truth' and I was suggesting to Nick (Hodgson, drums and co-songwriter) he should double up the end of the lines, sort of like rappers do. Eliot said that we should have got Sway to do it, we replied, can you get him back? So Eliot got in touch and he came back an hour later to do the backing bit and ended up doing the rap over the instrumental section too. Only me, Nick and Peanut were in the studio that day, so when we saw the others it was odd explaining what had happened."
  • Vocalist Ricky Wilson told the The Sun October 17, 2008: "I was going to a wedding one weekend and went up a day early. I was the best man. Just before I made the speech, Nick goes, 'Have you ever heard of a rapper called Sway?' And I was like, 'Yeah, man, of course I have'. I hadn't. I was just trying to look cool. Then Nick says Sway has actually just done a rap for our album. I thought, 'This sounds bad'. But then I got back on Monday morning to the studio, listened to it and realised it made the song better, no matter how weird it sounded on paper."

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