Bones Afterglow I Want Out Young Guns

Bones Album: Bones (2012)
Afterglow Album: Echoes (2016)
I Want Out Album: Ones and Zeros (2014)
by Young Guns

Bones is the title track of the British alternative rock band Young Guns' second album. Frontman Gustav Wood told the story of the song to Kerrang! "We borrowed our producer Dan Weller's studio to get ourselves out of our practice room that we've written in for years. Dan said, 'Borrow the studio, get some work done, and please don't have any parties…' Obviously we proceeded to have loads of parties and get absolutely nothing done for two weeks! On the last day we were really hungover, and the boys were sitting in the room with their instruments. Ben (Joliffe, drums) was messing around with a simple Queen-esque 'We Will Rock You' type tom beat. Out of nowhere, Fraser (Taylor, guitar) came up with the lead riff that 'Bones' uses. I ran into the room and was like, 'There's something about that! Keep doing it! When we got to the chorus part I just opened my mouth and 'I feel it in my bones' came out" We just looked at each other and were like, 'F--k! That's cool! Keep going! I knew right then that we'd written something special."

Wood added that his improvised hook was a reaction to hearing Bones itself: "We were really buzzing off it," he said, "so I just sang something that felt right in the heat of the moment and that chorus just came out! It instantly felt very familiar, we knew it was gold."

Bones was chosen by Kerrang! magazine as their Best Song of 2012.

Gustav Wood came up with Afterglow as a vocal idea but his bandmates at first struggled to convert knock it into shape. He explained to HMV.com:

"I'd written it in a really unusual time signature and we just could not figure out how to translate it into a full-band piece of music from the synth and vocal embryonic little thing that I had written."

Once Afterglow was ready to record, Chris Kamrada tracked the drums in just half an hour before rushing out of the door to the airport.

The first single from Young Guns third album, I Want Out was recorded in Bath, England with producer Steve Osborne (U2, Joy Division). The tune was debuted on BBC Radio 1 by Zane Lowe as the DJ's 'Hottest Record in the World' on August 7, 2014.

I Want Out's music video was directed by Drew Cox. "With this being the video for our first new song, we wanted to have some fun and shoot something a little different and trippy and slightly unconventional for a rock video," vocalist Gustav Wood told Billboard magazine. "The director, Drew Cox, was totally on board and we had a lot of fun using projections and playing with video screens. It's got a great energy to it and we're really stoked with the results."

Gustav Wood told the story of the song to Kerrang!: "With the way the melody works, the first hit of the chorus had to be in a statement – it had to be something that feels good when I'm shouting it as loud as I can.

The first thing that came into my head was 'I want out,' and often the first thing that comes in is the best.

I had this line in my head for ages about how temporary and transient everything has a tendency of being, 'All we are is leaves in the wind.' Now, I sing the song, and to me it's about how finite life is. You have to enjoy every moment so if you're not happy with something, change it."

The lyric, "All we are is pressed against the glass" was inspired by the iconic video for Alanis Morissette's "Ironic," where the singer is in the car and driving through the snow. Wood explained: "I had this vision of being in a car, and it's all fogged up, and someone writing 'I want out' on the window in the fog."

The "Rage against the dying light" lyric is the opening line of the Dylan Thomas poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Gustav Wood said: "I've wanted to put it in a song for ages – you have to be a magpie and collect little bits and pieces. And that's really important, because if you sit down to write a song and you've got nothing in the bank, that's a really difficult place to be."

Originally published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night's connotation with death and endings has been much used in film and television.

The "rage against the dying light" line was previously used by Garbage in their 2012 track "Big Bright World."