Songs: Everything's Turning Out All Right (everything)

notes / gigs / releases

I never thought I'd live to see the age of twenty
But you can see by the state of my stomach that I'm not dead
I thought the world would end in Fire and Winter
But if you look out the window you'll see it hasn't happened yet

And everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah
Everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah

I thought that I would live my life alone and lonely
But it turns out, nowadays, I probably won't
I thought that I repelled all women instantly
But evidence has been brought to light to show that I don't
(at least not always)

And everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah
Everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah

And you might say "Have you seen the news?"
"It's all really bad"
I'd reply - I've seen the news
And yes, it makes me sad to know that
People like you
And people like me
Have to live their lives unhappily
But I can only speak for me
And as far as I can see

Everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah
Everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah

Now, some people say they see the world as if the glass is half empty
Some people say they see the world as if the glass is half full
Other people yet say that that's a redundant metaphor -
Maybe the glass is half full 'cos that's all you're going to get?
Or
Maybe the glass is half empty 'cause you drank the rest
And really liked it

Yeah, anyway that's not the point I'm trying to make
See, I'll base how I feel my feelings are upon the way I feel
And not the way I feel I ought to feel

Because it's not gonna make much difference to the world if you
Pile all the panic of the planet upon your back
And though I know the world's awash with woe and weeping, that's no reason
For a frown when you know this FACT -

Everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah
Everything's turning out all right, everything
Everything's turning out all right - oh yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

I absolutely love this song, it is, in fact, my total favourite. Don't tell the other songs, they are all my babies, but this one is Special to me because it was written for the person I love more than anything, to try and make her happy. LOTS of songs on this record were written about unhappy times, and though they're pretty much attempts to Cheer Up, and Look Forward, this is the only one specifically ABOUT the happiness that the other songs are in search of. The first time I played it live, at gogojonnygogo in Leeds, Steven From The Chemistry Experiment came up to me afterwards and said "You're obviously a very very happy man."

He was right, I certainly was, for LO! I was in LOVE.

The first SPUR to writing the song was playing a gig on September 12th, 2001. It seemed a bit weird to be playing music then, especially with the kind of songs I write, and I had a Good Long Think about it, eventually decided that, if anything, songs about the Quest For Happiness and The Need To Be Nice had MORE of a place in the world than they ever had before. Many people needed some persuading about this, not least of all Charlotte Who I Love, who became very upset about the state of the world. Everything from "And you might say 'Have you seen the news?'" to the very end is my attempt to persuade her that you can't let the worries of the entire world drag you down, and though, yes, it's horrible that the majority of the world lives in such pain, putting YOURSELF into pain won't help anybody at all. If the world is lacking in happiness it makes no sense at all to try and get rid of any you find for yourself, just because not everyone can borrow it.

That's what I think anyway, any further BANGING ON is pretty much made pointless by the lyrics - they're the TRUTH, baby, everything I say is true!

ESPECIALLY that bit about "some people say they see the world as if the glass is half empty" which is an ANNOYING thing that IDIOTS say, as detailed further in the song. I was very pleased with that whole section, as you can probably tell - throughout the writing of this album I tried to not worry too much about the structure of the songs, to let each one follow the emotions behind it. Just to be CRAFTSMENLIKE for a moment, this all comes from my cover versions of "Boom Shake The Room" and "Stan", both GRATE songs which wander off in all sorts of directions, more like a NOVEL than a song, yet come back to the central point with that point ENHANCED by the diversion. I wanted to try and do something like that, and hey! I think I sort of did. Similarly the pretty INTENSE bout of Lyrical GangstaISM towards the end is based on The Young People's Rap Music.

The song BEGAN life in a rather different MODE. It had hung around half finished in a finger picking style (or at least the nearest I can GET to finger picking) for several weeks until being completed during the much mentioned GRATE SONG BUNG DEBUNGING of October 30th 2001. It works quite nicely as a slow-ish country picking sort of song, and I still do it that way when I play it live, but I knew from bitter experience that that sort of thing just doesn't work with a band, especially a HARD ROCKING BAND like mine. I also knew, also from bitter experience, that Slipping Free From The Bounds Of Conventional Song Structure is all well and good sat in your kitchen in the middle of the night thinking you're jolly clever, but it's a right pain in the arse trying to get a HARD ROCKING BAND to learn it, especially when, again, like us, that HARD ROCKING BAND only ever practices twice a year, if at all.

Add to this the FACT that we'd already spent well over eighteen months recording, and you have all the ingredients for a CUNNING TIME SAVING SCHEME! Rather than drag the band through the tedious Learning Process, why not just get The Mighty Rhythm Section to JAM the main RIFF of the song and then "Just Loop It"? SURELY that would make things much easier?

SO it came to be that, on a night when we also learnt, recorded and mixed "The Fair Play Trophy" AND did the basic track to "Good Cooking", I got The Mighty Rhythm Section to spend 15 minutes JAMMING the verses of the song. It actually came out really well, and I considered doing ALL the songs like this in future. FOOLISH HIBBETT!

The trouble was I kept having IDEAS. First of all, I thought we could do the different tune in the middle bit by taking the bass OUT and putting something else in instead. Thus Tom spent "just" a couple of months working out the SCORE, and we spent the best part of a whole NIGHT doing just that one little section, and even after that Kev had to spend about an HOUR taking tiny tiny little extra bits of drums out to make it all work. Similarly, I thought that we could plonk the guitar riff anywhere, and move it about easily, not realising that It Doesn't Really Work That Way (maybe it does with Regimented Professional Musicians, but not with part-timers out for a LAUGH like we are). And OH! happy day when I thought "Hmm, how about a DISCO VIOLIN STAB? We can Just Loop It!"

That took several HOURS to do... and then there was shifting the chorus vocals around, and putting the trumpets in the right place, and getting everyone in the right bit of stereo for their bits of vocals in "some people say.." and ... oh yes, and then there was THE MOBILE PHONE SOLO.

It came to me in a FLASH - people had used mobile telephones in songs before, but surely nobody had just used it for a SOLO? And DEFINITELY nobody had recorded that "dit da dit dit dit" noise that HERALDS an incoming call - anyone familiar with the Long Suffering Nature of Kev can easily picture the DISMAY on his face when I told him my PLAN for this bit, and anyone familiar (as surely anyone who's read this in order WILL be by now) with his MIGHTY POWERS will be able to guess what happened next. Two hours later I had to BEG Kev to accept that this was absolutely the BEST we could make Radio Interference sound, as he insisted on going back and trying a different microphone against his massive Marshall STACK. One of my happiest of many happy memories of these sessions is sitting in the control room ringing Kev in the other room to catch the interference, and thinking "What a BRILLIANT way to spend an evening!"

And then we spent the rest of the night TWEAKING the ring tone to fit, and RECONSTRUCTING the bass drum around it. It was FREEZING COLD in the studio that night, and around about midnight me, Tom, and Kev all gathered around the tiny heater in the middle of the room to BOOGIE to the half finished track. MAN we had some fun!

Later, Tom noticed a funny smell in the room. The heater had been plugged into a four way adapater with a couple of other heaters. The four way was plugged into another four way, which was full of other electrical equipment, and which itself was plugged into anothe four way. Following the trail back we discovered about TWENTY different high powered electrical items were plugged into ONE socket. YOINKS!

When it was all finished I DELIGHTED in playing it AT the other Validators, all the while going "No, wait, there's ANOTHER good bit coming", for there really is Not A Dull Moment from start to finish. It didn't exactly TURN ME ON to using LOOPS instead of Organic ROCK, but it IS, I reckon, DAMN GROOVY.


As I said, I absolutely LOVE this song.