Original subtitles

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forty years ago lovers like oxygen was

released January 1978 the interesting

thing is that against a tide of

punk-rock attract like lovers that

oxygen came through a seven minute song

and was played everywhere in the world

charted everywhere in the world

it puts sweet back on the map it was a

fantastic moment with all that never

mind the bollocks and various other

bands coming through it was a

magnificent effort all round but it just

showed you that there was still some

closet sweet fans somewhere who loved it

well I got on stage with spinal tap on

my 60th birthday in 2009 David st.

Hubbins that's Mike McKean actually took

me on one side and he said at the time

he was moonlighting in a I think he said

it was a like a an artist relations

office or something like that and he

said in my lunch hour I went out and

bought it I had to find it and buy it it

struck a chord and it puts week back on

the map but it started out maybe two or

three years before that in a slightly

different way

this is actually my home demo on one

inch tape and it's track recording that

I put together in the Christmas time

maybe November December of 77

Trevor Griffin who wrote the song with

me had some really interesting piano

pieces

he was like putting there like a rock

symphony together and the three main

paths that I heard and went that's

fantastic that's good that's good was

the intro of the day and the chorus with

the Supertramp double arpeggio

and as soon as I put my guitar to that

playing playing the guitar riff well it

became you know something symphonic and

just out of this world

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spring forward a couple of years having

had this sitting around in my head I

suddenly came across some lyrics that

I'd written down

probably back in 76 something like that

about love is like oxygen

you know you get too much you get too

high it just fitted we were working with

an arranger called Jeff Wesley who was a

fantastic pianist with his you know rap

manonoff style piano and for me to put

some Julian bream John Williams style

classical gut strum guitar with his

piano work was just fantastic

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we were in Kingsway recorders with Louie

we've been abroad we've been in the

Chateau terrible in Paris and somebody

kept saying to us you know something

it's that old ANR thing I haven't quite

heard the one yet the single the the

track which obviously you know as a

producer and you know songwriter you

start to worry about what you're doing

and this particular track was never in

my eyes gonna be like a commercial

venture I just happen to get Trevor and

I to plate to somebody I think it was

our manager they said is there anything

else as of what Trevor and I've been

working on this and they they all just

looked at me and went why have you been

hiding this it kind of all came together

in the studio really quickly Jeff

Wesley's of ranging head came on I think

we laid it down virtually second take

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Jeff Wesley decided to use his nine-foot

Steinway from his house in bounds and on

a Sunday the Heathrow flight path of

planes coming in to land would come

through Barnes so every 10 minutes

they'd have to be a stop in the

recording but we soldiered on and he

late you know a fantastic piano part

down

it hadn't really been done it in in

quite a while where you have sections

like this

I know Queen have done something similar

with Bohemian Rhapsody but here we are

it's the March of punk rock and here we

are recording a song like this I have to

say if anybody has said to me your next

single will be a slightly pompous

symphonic rock song I would have laughed

but here we are 40 years on it's still

probably the second biggest seller

worldwide after Fox on the run

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I was looking at the the tracklisting on

the box and it says backtrack on the

first two tracks that means that when I

went back to my home studio I would have

used the track that was laid down by the

band so I then laid all my vocals and

any guitar parts and things like that so

the track that the band had recorded in

the week when we assembled the beginning

of the following week there was a

silence in the control room and I think

Mick Tucker turned round and went well

that's it then

release that and that was the biggest

compliment ever by that time I was sold

you know I realized that we had

something that was quite um quite

stupendous quite different but you try

writing another one

you