On My One by Jake Bugg

Album: On My One (2016)

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The first single from Jake Bugg's third album finds him feeling lonely and alienated as he travels roams the globe playing his songs.

Three years on the road, 400 shows
Where do I call home
I'm so lonesome on my one

Jake Bugg recalled: "One day I picked up my guitar, started strumming and those words just came out as they were. There's a lot of that sentiment on the album which is why it works as a title. It's a lonely record in more ways than one. But those are always my favorite songs, the sad and the dark ones."
Jake Bugg explained the title of this bluesy track to Q magazine: "It's a phrase we say in Nottingham for being left alone - 'You left me on my one, bro!'"
This is one of several songs on the On My One album with a bluesy feel. "Blues is my favorite genre," said Bugg. "Whether it's soul or hip-hop, it all stems from the blues. To me the blues just means singing your emotions and expressing your pain so others can feel it. That's the beauty of music. If nothing else, I'd like to think I've done that with this record."
The song was inspired in part by Jake Bugg's fears about his future should he have a flop album. "You wanna do this job forever, don't you?" he told NME. "So it's make or break. If it flops, who's gonna buy the fourth record? That's why I had to give it everything. That's what [title track] 'On My One' is about: 'I'm a poor boy from Nottingham. I had all my dreams. But in this world they're gone'. My dreams have come true, but that's what I'd be singing if I lost everything."
Though the song explores themes of loneliness and burning out, Bugg isn't necessarily drawing on his own experiences. "The way I'd written that song, I think people think it's a song about me feeling sorry for myself on the road, but it's not the case," he explained to Digital Spy. "I've written it from the perspective of if this was all to end tomorrow and nobody wanted to come to any more shows, what kind of song would I sing? I put myself in a different situation to come up with something new."

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