The Burns Unit Present Side Show, Track-by-Track

From this, we hope you might get the tiniest insight into our heads, or even a wee whiff of musky rehearsal room after five days of coffee and cakes.

– Mattie Foulds, July 2010

1. Helpless To Turn
Emma played some beautiful chords; I heard a melody and suggested some lyrics; Kenny and Karine paced for what seemed like hours, testing out phrases, scratching out ideas, while we were backstage before a show. I remember feeling almost ill with the potent brew of anxiety and elation in the air while we put the pieces together. We spared no truths in this song – nothing in it feels like a lie. [Michael Johnston]

2. Since We've Fallen Out
On any workshop related jolly, there's always one swotty type who has to work longer and harder than everyone else, and in our Burnsong house that taskmaster was MJ. The teatime pudding bowls had no sooner hit the sink when we'd be dragged back to the piano in the livingroom, to write, write, write yet more depressing Canadian folk songs until we were all falling about pumping with laughter. [King Creosote]

3. What is life?
Working with MC Soom T was easily the most productive songwriting exercise of the Burnsong week for me. The pair of us cobbled together five songs in just over two hours. All credit goes to Soom, though – faced with a bulging A4 folder crammed with the odd thousand or so pages of machine gun rapid fire lyrics, I felt I had to show off my three chord arsenal where normally two would complete the mission. Such is the talent in the rest of the company that you might imagine a fourth chord now and again. At ease. [King Creosote]

4. Majesty Of Decay
Sushil (K. Dade, AKA Future Pilot AKA) was in his element in the summer house, riffing away in sunshine colours, which reminded me of a beautiful, cloying, day in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow. We worked the song from the bass up, my recollections providing lyrics – the park was pungent in the heat, and pulsing with a vibrant, chaotic energy. A wee boy ventured his hand through a fence to grasp a beautiful flower (albeit a weed) for his mum, and handed it to her with a beaming smile…the pace, noise, and heat of the day seemed to disappear in that mystical moment. [Kim Edgar]

5. Future Pilot AKC
Set the controls for the heart of the sun...the Pilot navigates through guitar structures created by His Majesty (King Creosote) using the electric bass as his company. Dub bass and the spirit of God Speed You Black Emperor provide the backbone to Creosote's haunting poetry and divine chordal interventions. Composed in a beach-hut on the Solway Firth, this song which was born in such a primitive manner has subsequently been 'coloured in' tastefully by the band to become the full 3-D version which appears on Side Show. [Future Pilot AKA]

6. Send Them Kids To War
Send them kids to war is a song dissecting my own opinion regarding war and the employment of civilians as young as 16 to join the army with an 18 year old legally allowed to wield, fire and use a gun to kill fellow human beings at the behest of a higher authority. It explores why I think it’s a lot of nonsense, how I believe a certain social group are indoctrinated into not only perceiving sending their children to war as acceptable but even heroic and pride instilling and why I think it is huge pile of steaming bullshit. [Soom T]

7. Trouble
I’d had the melody to this song recurring regularly in my head for years but I’d never managed to do anything with it until we tried it with The Burns Unit one day during a rare rehearsal opportunity. I suspected that with all the voices it could sound really good, and I’m really happy with the way the end has turned out – almost a cappella – with all the female voices intertwined around one another. A really simple song but one that allowed us to get the retro keyboard sounds out so that has to be a good thing. [Emma Pollock]

8. You Need Me To Need This
Writing this with Michael Johnston was a real pleasure. Again, I had the melody line and structure in my head for months before I arrived at the house. However I didn’t have the piano playing expertise to be able to do anything with it and then when it came to Michael and I sitting down to write together that week at the Burnsong House it all came together. I love how it’s turned out and especially love the Ennio Morricone bit in the middle when everything slows and the accordion kicks in. Ridiculously different to anything I would write as a solo artist but I guess that’s the point really isn’t it? [Emma Pollock]

9. Sorrys
I was doodling away on my tenor guitar during a rehearsal for a show when Michael started singing over the riff. We sketched a tune on the spot and then worried away at some words overnight in teams of two lads and two lassies, arriving back next day with two quite different songs. Agreeing to blend them into one lyric was a bit of test of collaborative mettle but made it a better song than either version. And it was lovely to come up with something that started out fragile, and stayed that way. [Karine Polwart]

10. Blood, Ice and Ashes
This one started because we needed more Kim. Her lyrical piano style was underrepresented. A murder ballad then, ya? Karine! You’re the only one here that can do that! So after hearing a thing Kim was playing, Karine went home and thought some bad thoughts and Kim thought some more bad thoughts and together they got this thing that was a wee bit Tori and a wee bit Nick, cool. Then Emma came out with the biggest riff since Elbow’s Grounds For Divorce. That made me play very loud, and I liked it. Add in some spooky keys and we’re there. Bone chilling stuff I think. [Mattie Foulds]