In June 2013, I was over in California for work. Whilst there, I bought an Epiphone Casino guitar. It was whilst playing around on this, that I stumbled across, and subsequently wrote, the riffs. Funnily enough, I finished writing and recording the song the following month, when I was again back in California.
If the riff is relatively recent, then the lyrics are a little older. They date from about 2011 and one of the few attempts that Joe and I made at writing a serious song (up until then, we had a much more successful history of writing daft, spoof songs together, usually at Glastonbury), during one of his weekend visits. Joe and I wrote the lyrics together.
The lyrics were originally sung to a riff I wrote around the chord of D. But I found they fitted this riff (around the chord of A) much better.
The theme is political…exasperation at apathy of the electorate. And about us (the electorate) being manipulated by the media; worse, being complicit in our own manipulation.
The title and song reference various British newspapers.