Recover

Album: All the Colours of You (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • Saville Shela, the father-in-law of James frontman Tim Booth, passed away because of COVID-19 in April 2020. Here, the singer details the isolation of lockdown and the death of his 83-year-old father-in-law "in a ward all alone."
  • Booth wrote the lyrics for "Recover" five weeks after his father-in-law died in England at Watford General Hospital. The singer and his wife Kate, who live in Los Angeles, could not fly back for the funeral, but penning the song helped him grieve.
  • We will remember
    Your last call was a song
    We will remember
    How to pass your spirit on


    Two hours before he died, a nurse held a FaceTime camera so Saville could say goodbye to his loved ones. Here, Booth recalls his ailing father-in-law asking him to sing the James anthem "Sit Down" for him in his last moments.
  • James included the song on their 16th album, All the Colours of You, recorded remotely during lockdown. The band teamed up with producer Jacknife Lee, who worked on the record from his own home. Booth told The Sun that when he came to sing this song, "I'd be in tears and Jacknife would have to be quite patient with me. It helped me go deeper into the sadness."

    Booth went on to say Jacknife made the song more uplifting. "He added the groove and called it a crying, laughing and dancing song."

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