Method To The Madness

Album: Fix Yourself, Not the World (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • Wombats frontman Matthew "Murph" Murphy wrote this song's verses about his honeymoon experience walking around European cities with his wife Akemi.

    Tourist traps and museum food
    Saying thanks in a language that's never been used
    This could be a holiday or an intersection
    Where two roads fuse, where two roads fuse


    Though excited, Murph couldn't help overthink his new circumstances. "I remember feeling everything about my life had changed, and at the same time had stayed the same," he told The Sun.
  • The chorus is especially introspective.

    There must be some method to the madness
    Method to the madness
    Still, I don't wanna know
    Just one last smile and then I'll go


    Rather than overthinking everything, Murph wishes he could go with the flow. He said the song "is about trying to find patterns within chaos and ultimately giving up, and letting go."
  • Murph originally demoed the track with bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen and drummer Dan Haggis at his LA home studio in 2019. By the time they were ready to record it, the COVID-19 pandemic meant Knudsen and Haggis had to lay down their parts remotely. Each band member did their contributions separately and sent them on to producer Mark Crew (Bastille, Rag'n'Bone Man). "It's been pretty mental, but I was out here in LA with an engineer and Dan and Tord were in London," Murph told NME. "We recorded it in 2019, but we've kept a lot of elements from the demo and that meant it was one of the easiest songs to do."
  • The Wombats released the R&B-infused song on May 26, 2021. It marked the Liverpool band's first material since their 2018 album Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life. "When that song came around, we thought it was so special, a different change of pace and a different style for us," said Murph. "You know, as soon as we'd released the demo we just thought it was a song we could release out of the blue at any time and make a really cool visual to go alongside it."

    "It was an oddball song for us and something that could stand alone, so that's how we've treated it," he added. "It's a nice weapon to have in our arsenal, and taking people by surprise is something you want to implement when you get to your fourth or fifth album."
  • The Wombats released "Method to the Madness" as the lead single from their fifth album Fix Yourself, Not the World. The record topped the UK albums chart, becoming the band's first ever #1 album in their home country. Their previous best placing had been the #3 that 2011's This Modern Glitch and 2018's Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life both reached.

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