Primadonna Like Me

Album: Young & Dangerous (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • The Struts' Luke Spiller is a flamboyant frontman who was described by one critic as "the musical love child of Freddie Mercury and Mick Jagger." He wrote this bombastic track about his stage character. Spiller explained:

    "It's this completely deluded guy running around his small town, all dressed to the nines - a full-on 21st century dandy going around saying, 'Don't you know who I think I am?'"
  • The song came about when Luke Spiller and guitarist Adam Slack were working with their producers on the island of Jersey, off the south coast of England. They were getting frustrated with a demo that had huge potential, but was missing some vital ingredient, so they decided to let off some steam.

    "We had this riff that Adam was playing that really reminded me of Elton John's Yellow Brick Road era," Spiller recalled to Louder Sound. "So we had this amazing backing track, and we sort of knew what it was going to be, but this chorus was just insane. We were banging our heads against a brick wall for two days with the loop of the chorus going over and over and over."

    The song had a working title of 'I'm The King Of Rock, I'm The King Of Rock And Roll', which The Struts band members knew had to be replaced. Spiller explained they "were looking for a great word, and 'primadonna' suddenly just came out, and that was it."

    The word "primadonna" proved to be the missing piece in the jigsaw and after that the song came together fairly easily.

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