She's Given Up Talking

Song facts

From a November 2001 interview:

‘She’s Given Up Talking’ was about someone I know whose kid had gone to school and wouldn’t talk all day that she was in school. For a year she wouldn’t talk at school and his idea of her giving up talking seemed like a good title to me. I wrote the song a couple of years ago; when I was on holiday in Jamaica and remembered this story of this girl who wouldn’t talk to the teachers or anything – which I ended up thinking that was a pretty good strategy for school, I wish I’d have thought of that. Of course I would have just got caned, they were wise to that kind of shit, my school. Then I hastily put together the middle of ‘She’s Given Up Talking’ here in LA. One of the fun things about working here was because I hadn’t told anyone what we were going to do and hadn’t played them any demos, and instead came in and just said ‘right, we’re going to do this song,’ doing that gave me a little freedom and I didn’t have to finish the songs before ten minutes before the session. I’d run upstairs to the lounge above the studio and finish it quickly. I knew what I wanted for the middle – that when she gets home she talks a lot – so I just finished it fast.

Last updated on April 30, 2018

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