Love Letters

Album: Love Letters (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Metronomy frontman Joe Mount told NME the inspiration for this 1970s inspired track: "There is this French musical, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, and I was imagining how French people from the '60s might dance to its songs when I came up with this," he explained. "The piano sound is inspired by the Beach Boys' 'Wild Honey.'"
  • This served as the title track of Metronomy's fourth studio album, which was recorded at the all-analog Toe Rag Studios, the same place where the White Stripes laid down Elephant in 2003. Mount told NME that thematically the record is about travel, both in the literal sense (he lives in Paris, but still records in London) and the mental sense ("It's about not being in any place in particular").
  • The song's music video was filmed by Michel Gondry, the Oscar-winning director of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. Gondry has previously directed classic music clips for a range of artists including Bjork, Radiohead, Kylie Minogue, The White Stripes and Daft Punk. However, this was the French auteur's first music clip since Bjork's "Crystalline" in 2011.

    Gondry told NME: "I was told to do (that video)! But then I asked my friends and they all said, 'It's a cool band.' I'd like this song, but I didn't know them. I'm ignorant. I like to listen to funky music, to Michael Jackson. I felt this particular song was a mixture of the Stranglers for the piano and David Bowie a bit for the voice. But on hearing the other songs they made, it's not that. It's really the piano that reminds me of the Stranglers."
  • This story of an old-fashioned relationship by post is allegory to Mount communicating and being away from his girlfriend when he's touring. He told The Sun the song was "inspired by being away from loved ones and traveling and missing them."
  • Michel Gondry built a scale model of the set before filming the video. Mount recalled to HMV.com: "He came round to my flat to show me this model, it was really nice actually, he'd made this transportable paper model and that way of doing things I can really associate with, he has the enthusiasm of someone just starting out."

    "I like that he's achieved as much as he has but still has this enthusiasm for the idea," Mount added. "I guess, if I was to force the point, it's similar to the way I have of working, it's the idea and the way of doing it that's the most exciting part."

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