Borrowed Time

Album: Please and Thank You (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • What is a stair lift? It's the same as an American chair lift - and not the sort skiers use to get uphill. The chair lift in this song is the mechanical device that helps people in wheelchairs get up and down the stairs. And this song, confesses singer Steve Adams, is "about two old people getting it on on a chairlift." He breaks into a laugh and says, "That's really nice, if you end up in an old people's home together, you'd probably still want to..."

    On a deeper level, though, Steve clarifies, "It's a song about sometimes in a relationship you feel like you're rushing headlong towards everything, and you're panicking. I suppose it's a song about saying, 'We don't have to panic anymore. We've got years ahead of us, but we still have to be nice to each other.' And have sex on a chairlift." (quotes from a Songfacts interview with Adams)
  • In a shout-out to John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steve Adams used the word "chooglin'" in one of the verses here, which surprised even him. "I thought I hardly ever used any Americanisms when I was singing in American," he explains, talking about how their first records were recorded using an "American accent." "There's probably about half a dozen throughout all of our records. And then this one record that we've just done is like the most English phrasing. I think it's particularly English in its topics and scope and everything. And I thought it would be hilarious (laughing) to put 'chooglin' in the middle of it."

    He's not really clear on what the word means, but interprets it as a style of guitar playing. He says, "Somebody had mentioned that even though we stopped doing country music, the rhythm guitar still does that stuff – chooglin' – like John Fogerty does, maybe."

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