Paperback Head

Album: Sainthood (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • After 14 years of making music and six albums together, this is the first true Tegan & Sara collaboration. The pair usually choose to write separately but decided to try to write together for the first time during a trip to New Orleans. This was the only song from the trip to make it onto the record but the pair considered the collaboration a success - even if it was, at times, trying. "It certainly illuminated for me the differences between our writing styles," Sara told The Canadian Press.
  • Sara summed up the process to MTV News with one word: "Awkward. Not just because it was Tegan, [but] I don't think I would project a level of comfort with anyone. It's such an intimate time. I've never approached music as a collaborative effort. It's one part of our career that we actually do alone." Tegan added: "Only one song we collaborated on made the final 13. But we wrote 51 songs, some together, some different. It's exciting to know there's something to look forward to - that there will be more writing and collaboration."
  • Tegan told Billboard magazine that the duo found their writing styles were not particularly compatible, with Sara by far the more "meticulous" of the two. However, with this song the twins, who live on opposite sides of their native Canada, discovered they could work together if they weren't in the same room. "We've been sharing files and sending MP3s back and forth and collaborating that way," she said. "We find it easier. But I'm glad we did try to sit in a room together and do it so we could see how we each worked. I felt proud we were able to do it without being arrested or killing each other."

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