"Listen" by The Kooks: Lyrics Trivia Quiz

Answer: Around Town

"Around Town" is the first track of the album "Listen". The song goes "I want someone to be, and someone to drive around town, I need someone to love when the chips are down...love me when the chips are down". That last expression is the singer asking someone else to support him when he's going through a difficult moment, a sentiment strengthened by the following line: "could you love me when the world is crashing all around?"

The album was first released on September 8, 2014. Critics have described the album as an attempt by the band to reassess their musical style. The style is certainly different compared to previous albums, but in my opinion, it is one of their best works! This song, "Around Town", also became known to a wider audience because it was included in the soccer video game "FIFA 15".

Answer: Forgive & Forget

"Forgive & Forget" is a fantastic and catchy mixture of electric guitars, bass, and drums. Led by Luke Pritchard's distinctive voice, the song tells the story of Frankie, who quite directly tells a girl he is not looking for as serious a relationship as she is. Through the lines "packing her bags, she found somewhere to stay, and in the car to the station" we learn that the couple is no longer together.

The music video was directed by Ivana Bobic and shows The Kooks playing in a circle while they are surrounded by dancers dressed in white. "Forgive & Forget" was released as a single a week before the album was released. Pritchard explained that the song was influenced by Prince and The Rolling Stones.

Answer: Westside

The third track of the album "Listen" has a nicer theme than the preceding one. "Westside" was written by Luke Pritchard and it is about two of his best friends getting married. The title of the song is mentioned at the very beginning, when Luke sings: "I was living on the Westside, when you brought me South". The song also has the lyrics "this is love song number 23" and "I had to work for your love", indicating how hard it was for one of them to seduce the other.

According to Pritchard, the song was originally conceived as a piano ballad but it became a much more upbeat tune thanks to producer Inflo.

Answer: See Me Now

"See Me Now" is a beautiful piano ballad that started as a letter Luke Pritchard wrote to his father, who passed away when Luke was very young. The song has some emotional lines like "if you could see my smile, see your little boy, oh would you be proud?" and some funny ones too like "I've been in sticky situations, I fell in love with a girl who likes girls".

Pritchard described the song as very "personal" and also revealed that the band took little time recording it since they were happy with the "raw" performance they delivered in their first attempts.

Answer: It Was London

Leaving the theme of love and relationships, "It Was London" is a song about protests against police brutality that were taking place all around England (and the world) in the first half of the 2010s. The song contains lines like "man got shot by a policeman" and "on the television, of course they blame the youth for disruption, 'cause they took Fortnum & Mason" (the latter is a department store).

Luke Pritchard described it as "I guess, a protest song" that he wrote based on stories he heard about police brutality and subsequent riots that ensued in London and other cities.

Answer: Bad Habit

"Bad Habit" is one of the most popular songs of the "Listen" album. In an interview with The Guardian, Luke explained that the song is about sex addiction and indeed, he himself has suffered from sex addiction. The song's chorus goes: "You say you want it but you can't get it, and you got yourself a bad habit for it, well look at you, walking up and down the hall, singing 'please, save me'". The last line sounds a bit different in the recorded version compared to when The Kooks play it live, but they both sound great!

Luke Pritchard has also said that the catchy choral introduction to the song was partly inspired by Kanye West.

Answer: Down

This is another funky song that is somewhat different from the earlier work of The Kooks. Before the music even starts, Pritchard sings: "woah yeah, I've been round town, there's a rumour baby, you're planning to bring me..." which is followed by "down down diggy de down down" multiple times. It's quite catchy!

Luke Pritchard explained that the process of creating "Down" was somewhat unusual for them because they wrote it based on a sampled drum loop. He credited Inflo for his influence in creating this piece. It was the first single from "Listen" to be released, on April 18, 2014.

Answer: Dreams

"Dreams" starts with: "Baby in the morning, pour me your dreams, don't bring me coffee, I'm somewhere in between". According to Luke Pritchard, the song was inspired by the ending of Hermann Hesse's novel "Steppenwolf" and "falling through different psychedelic moments".

The song features an interesting style in that its guitar parts sound a little like Spanish flamenco (but maybe it's just me?). One of the first times The Kooks played this song live was at an event organized by Virgin Records.

Answer: Are We Electric

The song opens with "why do we keep denying that we can feel it, when we've got each other and we are electric together". This was the only song in the standard edition of "Listen" that was co-written by Fraser T. Smith, who has participated in other successful hits like Taio Cruz's "Break Your Heart" and "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele.

Luke Pritchard explained that "Are We Electric" tells the story of a relationship that seems to be going well, but despite all the good feelings going on, the couple doesn't work together. In Pritchard's words, it is about "that feeling that you have with someone where you can't live with each other but you can't live without each other".

Answer: Sunrise

"Sunrise" is the penultimate track of the "Listen" album, as it is the tenth track of this eleven-song album. This number, of course, doesn't include a few other songs that were added to the deluxe version of the album.

The lead vocalist of The Kooks thinks that the song has a lot of "Brazilian vibes" driving it. "Sunrise" has a catchy, eclectic rhythm as it repeats "everybody loves the sunrise" several times throughout the 3-minute song.

Answer: Sweet Emotion

Those lyrics are the first words we hear in the song "Sweet Emotion", which closes the fantastic album, "Listen". The first couple of times I listened to this album, this was one of the songs that I most remembered from it. This is why it was very interesting to hear Luke Pritchard say that he was glad it made it into the album since the band had to persevere to make it work. The chorus goes: "yes I feel sweet emotion, every time you're near me, every time you are near". The song ends with a lengthy, beautiful piano outro as the sound fades.

"Listen" was the fourth studio album released by The Kooks, following "Inside In/Inside Out" (2006), "Konk" (2008), and "Junk of the Heart" (2011). They would not release their fifth, "Let's Go Sunshine", until 2018. At this time, The Kooks were composed of Luke Pritchard, Hugh Harris, Peter Denton, and Alexis Nunez.