Songfacts®:

• The atmospheric "Bedlam Bridge" describes a bleak society overrun by gangs and guns and ruled by cowardly politicians. The album's producer, Warne Livesey, told Blurt Magazine how he created the tune's sonic landscape: "There's a duality in the lyrics: the observation of the darker sides of society against the hope and positive potential. So I wanted to create that tension in the soundscape aspects of the track that enhance the more band like components. So there are angular elements like the reverse guitars mixed with sweeter synth pad sounds and the programmed sampled ethnic drums. Explaining it all in retrospect makes it sound much more calculated in how it’s put together, whereas in reality when we were working on the song we were following a general idea of what we were going for and are mainly led by intuition and what felt right."
• For the music, Livesey said he was trying to incorporate esoteric music into a rock/pop context. During the production, he was listening to artists like Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, Brian Eno, and The Blue Nile.
• Jim Moginie, the band's keyboardist and guitarist, credits the "steamy, slightly drugged electronic feel" to Livesey, who had just wrapped up The The's art-pop dance album Mind Bomb.