Them That Do Nothing

Album: Field Music (Measure) (2010)
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Songfacts®:

  • Field Music are an Indie Rock band hailing from Sunderland in the North East of England who formed in 2004. The band's core consists of former Futureheads drummer Peter Brewis and his brother David. This song is their first single from their third album, Field Music (Measure).
  • This song was written by Peter Brewis. His brother David told Drowned In Sound about it: "Lyrically, this one owes our lot to our dad - if either of us are getting down at ourselves for screwing something up, he'll say, quite sensibly that the only people who make no mistakes are the ones who don't do anything, or in finest mackem-speak, 'Them that dee nowt, mak nee mistakes'. The music shows our love of Lyndsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac - Peter wanted a song where the rhythm came from a really clipped acoustic guitar and the drums and bass embellish around that."
  • David Brewis explained to CMU how he and his brother go about creating a track. "Peter and I generally don't write together. For me, a song usually starts from a little riff or melodic idea and I try to let that idea ferment in my brain and imply what else should happen in the song. It's not always quite that easy though. Lyrics usually come in a similar way - one or two little nuggets which grow into a song, through some combination of sorcery and sweat. For this album, we started recording most of the songs with one of us playing the drums and the other one playing a guide guitar or piano. It's not like we jut pile stuff on top after that though - we both tend to have a very clear idea of the arrangement from very early on the songwriting process. The difficulty then is trying to make our recording match the sound of the song we have in our heads."

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