Mecca

Album: Present Tense (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Vocalist Hayden Thorpe told DIY magazine the story of this sensual ode to the sublime. "'Mecca' was by nature a pop song," he said. "It wasn't by design, but it felt like an injustice not to allow it to bloom into that. It would have been awkward if we didn't let them spill out."

    "There's a piano at my dad's house that most of the songs have emerged from," Thorpe continued. "It's often housed by me and my brother and one morning I was locked out, and I was desperate to play. I was absolutely furious, kicking down a door. I was in a really foul mood. Eventually I was let in - I went straight for the piano. Sometimes you get the feeling you need to get something done, get it out of the way. That's how it came about."
  • Bassist Tom Fleming told NME: "The guitar and beat were added late – there's something beautiful about making a post-dance record and then sticking a guitar solo on it."
  • Thorpe told DIY magazine this was inspired by 1990s dance music. "We wrote 'Mecca' during the period where we'd almost discarded entirely the idea of being part of a band," he explained. "I was listening to Detroit Techno, thinking the record was going to be far less band-orientated than it actually became in the end."

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