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"Thinking In Ways"

Up There Down Here
From the 1999 album Up There, Down Here
Written by Bret Alexander & Mike Naydock

This is a classic Naydock lyric. Probably the only song in existence about a prepaid funeral. When we finished this song I thought it had the potential to be our "Everybody Hurts" (REM). I remember our label president being really excited about it. It was such a unique idea for a tune and a really pretty track.

Our producer Joe Alexander really came through with some gorgeous warm tones in the studio. All the ballads on Up There Down Here sounded great. I think they have held up really well over time. I am quite certain if things had gone according to plan this song would have been a later single off of Up There Down Here, but while we were finishing the record our parent label Polygram was purchased by Seagrams. It was to become the beginnings of Universal Music and, by the time the dust settled, every single person that had worked on our record, from label president to radio promo guy had either been fired or moved to another position.

We had spent 6 years trying to get a record deal, then another year and a half touring in support of our label debut. Up There Down Here was supposed to be the record to help define what the band was capable of artistically - the next step along the way. Instead we spent the better part of the next year trying to get out of the deal we had worked so hard to get.

In interviews, I remember Pete saying that the reason we called the record Up There Down Here was because there were some of the loudest and quietest songs we had ever done on that disc. That was true. But it was also because we had spent so many years onstage and all of a sudden we found ourselves in the audience again.

   - Bret Alexander

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