Wheels

Album: The Pursuit (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • This rumination on the state of the planet is a track from English crossover jazz singer-songwriter Jamie Cullum's fourth studio album, The Pursuit.
  • Cullum told the story of the song in publicity materials: "I was driving along one day in January when the Credit Crunch was just starting to bite and the weather was terrible. This line came to me: 'The wheels are falling off the world.' I wrote it down and didn't really do anything with it. Then a friend brought his four-year-old over to mine and he was showing me an exercise they teach you when you first learn to play piano – rolling your knuckles over the black notes. Suddenly it all connected in my head. This song uses the same notes and construction that that four-year-old showed me! It's about the clarity you get when you're drunk and out on the town. It's about trying to get that back when you're sober."

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