搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）

翻译：ConigliaFolle/Nina Wang/1&OnlyFudge/Emma.Z

校正：1&OnlyFudge/Ryan-Chopin

原文链接：https://pitchfork.com/features/song-by-song/the-1975s-matty-healy-dissects-every-song-on-a-brief-inquiry-into-online-relationships/

Matty Healy is overwhelmed by the view. The 29-year-old Mancunian falls silent as he looks across Manhattan’s bottom end from the 40th floor of One World Trade Center. It’s the only time during our conversation that words fail him.

Matty Healy为窗外的景象而震惊。这位29岁的曼彻斯特人从世界贸易中心一号大楼第40层向下望曼哈顿的街景时，突然沉默。整个采访里，只有这一次他说不出话了。

He’s here to talk about A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, the adventurous third album from his shapeshifting pop group, the 1975. Discussing his songwriting, words like “deconstructed,” “anthological,” and “postmodern” come up a lot, and the record reflects his uncontainable philosophy of the world. It includes era-defining rock anthems and the tenderest of ballads; a jazz standard about keeping things casual and a glittery pop song about Healy’s decision to kick heroin. For good measure, there’s also a creepily funny monologue narrated by Siri.

他是来聊一聊自己带领的流行乐队The 1975的第三张专辑《网络交友的快问快答》( A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships)，这张专辑风格十分大胆，展现了该乐队的极强可塑性。当谈到歌曲创作的时候，像“解构”（deconstructed），“选择性的”（anthological），还有“后现代”（postmodern）这样的词很多次出现，整张专辑也包含了他对于世界无止境的哲学理解。整张专辑中有划时代的摇滚，也有温柔的抒情歌曲；一首爵士歌曲讲述着顺其自然，还有一首亮耳的流行歌曲讲述了马修决定戒掉海洛因的经历。除此之外，里面还有一段Siri讲述的独白，奇怪而有趣。

While the 1975 are already planning a follow-up album, titled Notes on a Conditional Form, for next year—a decision Healy says was informed by au courant binge culture—he isn’t taking anything about the 15 songs on A Brief Inquiry for granted. For now, the chronic overthinker at the forefront of one of the decade’s most relentless bands seems content, adding a new dimension of wisdom to his trademark no-filter openness. “I’m not scared of anything,” he says warmly. “And I’m not hiding anything.”

The 1975已经在准备下一张专辑了，名叫《Notes on a Conditional Form》，准备在明年发行——希利说这个决定是由当今这放纵狂欢的文化环境所决定的——他不认为《快问快答》中的这15首歌是轻松得来的。如今，这位“患有”慢性多虑症的艺术家看着自己这支乐队在十年来活力一直未有消减，似乎很是满意；这为率真的希利增添了一丝睿智。“我什么都不怕。”他温和地说。“我也不打算隐瞒什么。”

1. “The 1975”

Pitchfork: The self-titled intro has become a tradition across your three albums so far. Each one has the same lyrics but different arrangements, and this is the most sparse and strange version yet. How did it come about?

这首同名的序曲已经成为了三张专辑的传统。每首的歌词都是一样的，但是编曲不同，现在这首是三首里最稀奇古怪的版本了。它是怎么诞生的呢？

Matty Healy: Throughout the making of the record, I had a different intro that was based on Steve Reich, like xylophones and strings. I was working on it for fucking ages and I just couldn’t get it right. So, two days before we had to deliver the record, we didn’t have an intro. I was like, “Why don’t I go in the booth on the piano, and then maybe we manipulate it and see if anything interesting happens.” That was the most last-minute thing on the whole record, and it was a real panic. But as soon as we got this version, I was like, “That’s actually fucking dope.” I went from hating myself to being kind of proud of myself in a day.

Matty Healy：在制作整张专辑的时候，我制作了一个史蒂芬·莱奇（ Steve Reich）风格的序曲，有木琴和弦乐之类的元素。我在这首曲子上花了很多很多时间，但是依然找不到感觉。所以在专辑要交付的前两天，我们还没有序曲。我当时就想：“也许我可以坐在钢琴前，随便弹点什么？或许我们就能搞出来一些很有趣的东西来呢！”这是我们整张专辑里最后一个最终敲定的曲子，真的让人害怕。但当我们得到了最终的版本时，我想，“这真的太**棒了。”我在一天之内经历了从讨厌自己到为自己骄傲这种过山车般的情绪。

Do you think you’ll ever abandon these intros in the future?

你觉得你会在未来放弃这种序曲吗？

I love drama and subtext and all that shit, so I think I’d keep those themes. It’s always a signpost of where we are. Instead of taking a picture of someone, it’s like holding a video on them for five minutes—they have to squirm a little bit.

我喜欢极强的戏剧性，还有歌词背后的潜在意义之类的，所以我觉得我应该会保留这种序曲。它们一直是提醒我们身处何处的标示牌。就像是保留一段五分钟的有关某个人的录像，而不是给他拍照——他们肯定会有点不舒服。

2. “Give Yourself a Try”

You sound like you’re speaking to your younger fans on this song.

在这首歌里，你像是在跟你的年轻粉丝们谈话。

It’s about how, whether it’s through pop culture or literature, you’re presented with the idea of these destinations of happiness, of being a grown-up and feeling OK about yourself—and it never really happens. I’d love to talk to myself at 40 and see what I’ve achieved and what I feel… but I will just be the same neurotic person who’s striving to be a grown-up.

这首歌讲述的是当今的流行文化和文学给年轻人们灌输的价值观。（现在的流行文化）告诉我们要快乐幸福，要有成年人的样子，要自我感觉良好——但我们从来都没有实现过这些目标。我很好奇自己40岁的时候，收获了什么，感觉如何……但那个40岁的我大概还是一个努力成长的神经质（就像现在一样）。

Do you think this current generation of teenagers has it harder than you did?

你认为当今这一代青少年的生活状态比你当时更艰难吗？

Definitely. I have a brother who’s 13 years younger than me. Back when I was in high school, if there was a fight, there’d be the buildup, then the fight, and then the aftermath where people talk shit, but then people would go back to their houses and that was it. But my brother was telling me that now, with Twitter, the fight is the start of it. Once everyone goes home, everyone’s adrenaline is up, so everyone’s like [mimics excitedly typing on a phone]. Then another 15 fights get organized for after school and then that shit kicks off and then you go home, and everyone’s up till like four in the morning, going, “Bro, you’re going to get fucked up!” And then everyone’s super tired and turns up to school all craggy. Nobody can concentrate, everyone’s fighting.

那是肯定的。我有一个小13岁的弟弟。在我高中的时候，如果有人打架，那他们就会拉帮结派，然后就打起来了，打完之后双方可能还会说点闲话，但之后大家就会各回各家，这事儿就算结束了。但我弟弟跟我说，现在因为有了推特，打架只是一个“开始”。大家各自回去了以后，每个人都肾上腺素飙升，然后就（模仿激动地在手机上打字的动作）。所以放学之后还会发生另外15场战争，导火索才被点燃，然后每个人都熬夜到凌晨三四点，说着“哥们儿，你明天完蛋了！”之类的话。但大家都累得不行，第二天上学的时候都快崩溃了。没人能集中精力学习，人人都在打架。

3. “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME”

This is a relatively simple pop song in the context of the album. Did writing a track like this feel counterintuitive?

在整张专辑的背景下，这首歌显得格外简单而大众。写这样的歌对于你来说是不是违背了自己的直觉（counterintuitive）？

That’s the exact word, counterintuitive. Where I’m at now—in the least pretentious way I can try to explain it—I just want to celebrate what I am. And that allows me to be as serious or as frivolous or as emo or whatever it may be. I get to play with all these bits of my identity that I’ve created over the years. So that’s why, when I was making this song, I didn’t have the kind of “serious artist” syndrome that I’ve had before. Making a record is like delineating a personality, and you can’t do that without it being incredibly dynamic. Because that’s what a personality is—loads of things.

这个词用得很准确，违背直觉（counterintuitive）。就我现在所处的位置来说——我试着用最露骨的方法来说明——我只想享受现在的我。我可以严肃、轻佻或者情绪化，或者其他什么样子。我可以玩弄这些年来我所建立的身份标签。这也是为什么我在制作这首歌的时候，并没有带着之前我一直有的那种“严肃的艺术家”包袱。制作专辑就像刻画一个人物，如果你没有蓬勃的创新力的话，就不能完成这项工作。因为一个人物是包罗万象的。

As long as songs are about something, it doesn’t matter. When songs are just rhymes, and they don’t mean anything, I’m not into that. But songs can be about frivolity itself—if it’s a good song about frivolity. So it did start out to be a bit counterintuitive, but then I just thought, “I love pop music! I don’t make any apologies for that. And it doesn’t negate my intellect or integrity.” Also, the song just wouldn’t work if I was trying to be verbose. It wouldn’t resonate. It also wouldn’t be fun, because that’s gotta be what music’s about at some point.

如果这些歌曲是有内容的，那就没什么要紧。当歌曲里面只有韵律、并没有实际的含义时，我就不在乎了。但是一首歌的内容也可以就是“轻率”本身——如果这首歌写得好的话。所以一开始的时候，这确实有点违背我的习惯，但是我只是想，“我爱流行音乐！我也不会因此而感到抱歉。它也不会影响我的聪明才智和正直的秉性。”而且当我写词很啰嗦冗长的时候，我也写不出来好歌，这种歌并不能入耳，它也不会有趣。因为从某种程度上来说，这不是音乐的精神。

4. “How to Draw/Petrichor”

This song sounds like your tribute to UK garage music. What is your history with that genre?

这首歌中，你似乎在致敬英国车库音乐。那么你对这种流派有什么记忆吗？

Growing up in the UK, if the radio was on past 7 o’clock, it was dance music. It’s the soundtrack to nighttime, to being up too late, to being a kid. So it’s not so much us trying to pay homage to the records we were into as teenagers as much as it was the sound of being young to me. That’s why “How to Draw” is really easy for us, because that’s our identity. That’s where we come from.

我在英国长大，每天7点多打开电台，放的一定是舞曲。在熬夜的晚上，这些音乐便烙印在我幼小的心里。所以这首歌并不是在刻意致敬我们年轻时喜欢的音乐，而是在述说我的年少青春。因此“How to Draw”的创作可以说是信手拈来，因为它是我的自我认同和心灵归属。

Is that influence a preview of where the band is headed on the next album?

这一影响是否预示着乐队下一张专辑的走向？

There’s an element of a preview in the production, because it’s such a masterpiece by [drummer/producer George Daniel]. At the moment, if we just put out what we have, it would be very left-field. But it’s taking shape. It just didn’t make sense to tour for two years and make one album, being the band I want to be. It’s not how it’s happening now. It’s not how even I consume things: I watch something on Netflix and it’s like, “That was the greatest thing I've ever seen. Next?”

在制作上的确有预示的意思，毕竟这个杰作也出自 [drummer/producer（鼓手／制作人） George Daniel]之手。虽然我们已经有了些想法，但这种想法呈现出的效果不一定尽人意。我们不是那种巡演还按照原样两年出一张专辑的乐队；我们需要积淀，做自己想做的音乐。这首歌不关乎当下，不关乎我当下的想法。就像我在Netflix（美国一个视频制作网站）上看完一个很好的视频，就会感慨：“这集太棒了！真期待下一集。”

5. “Love It If We Made It”

The first thing this made me think of was Scottish ambient pop group the Blue Nile, particularly “The Downtown Lights” from their 1989 album Hats.

听完这首歌，我第一个想到的就是苏格兰氛围音乐流行组合Blue Nile，尤其是他们1989年《Hats（帽子）》收录的“The Downtown Lights（城市的霓虹闪烁）”。

Full-on. That definitely started out as us just killing Hats every night before we went onstage, listening to that record until it broke. It’s slightly different; it’s like Blue Nile on steroids. We wanted it to sound really machine-like, in an industrial sense.

确实很像。以前我们每晚上台前都要过一遍“Hats”，日复一日直到光盘磨损为止。但它们还是有些区别的，这首歌是夸张版的Blue Nile。我们想做得更机械，更有工业风。

The lyrics are very of-the-moment, with references to Trump and Kanye and Lil Peep. How did you go about writing them?

歌词紧跟时事，提到了Trump，Kanye和Lil Peep。你是怎么写出这些歌词的？

Basically, every day post-I Like It When You Sleep, I got [Dirty Hit Records product manager] Ed [Blow] to pick up the tabloid newspapers on the way into the office so I could eventually, after a year, have every single tabloid headline and write a song about that. The sad thing is that, using the actual things that were written, it was just becoming too slapstick and funny.

“I Like It When You Sleep（喜欢安睡时的你）”基本上就是每日新闻的精华。Dirty Hit Record（英国独立厂牌）的产品经理Ed Blow每天都会带一份报纸到办公室，于是我就攒了一整年的每日头条，写了这首歌。但美中不足的是，用时事做词歌曲会显得过于滑稽。

Can you remember any lines that were cut?

你能说说一些被删掉的歌词吗？

There was one funny one about a horse: “Horse Burger Butchered by the British,” or something like that. And it was all about foreign nurses as well. So I just let it sit. But then, every time something really touched me, I would make a thing out of it. And then I had loads of stuff, and I had to make it all rhyme. That was the most difficult bit.

有一句关于马的歌词挺有意思的，大概是：“Horse Burger Butchered by the British（英国马肉汉堡风波）”。还有一篇讲外国护士的新闻，我又记了下来。但后来每次我有感触时又会加一句歌词，渐渐地记得多了，我得让它们押韵。而这一句实在不好处理，所以就删了。

Were there any moments of writing it that were particularly memorable?

写这首歌的过程中有什么难忘的经历？

There was one moment while making the record that, if you could bottle it, it would be better than any other drug. I was sat in my car, and I had to get this line. I had, “Consultation, degradation, fossil-fueling masturbation/Immigration, liberal kitsch, kneeling on a pitch...” And then I had “excited to be indicted.” I had all these things, but I didn’t have that one bit in between. I needed seven syllables. And I’d just written the Kanye line, and I was thinking, “What else has he famously said?” Then it was like [sings triumphant melody] the syllable spaces of “I moved on her like a bitch” just went in, game show-style, and I was like, “Oh my god! I’ve got it!” And then [my bandmates] were like, “It’s another swear word.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s a bit annoying.” But then I was like, “No, if we’re going to get censored, we’re going to get censored for verbatim quoting the leader of the free world.” That is the song in its essence. How weird is reality?

有那么一瞬间，你要是在场，肯定会觉得我的反应比嗑*还有意思。当时我坐在车里想歌词。我已经写了两句：“心理咨询，堕落，燃烧，自赎，移民，自由主义的媚俗，球场上的下跪……”和“被起诉了我超激动”，就差中间的七个音节。那会儿我刚写完Kanye部分的词，于是我就开始想他还有什么“名言”。霎那间，就像一扇门突然被踹开一样，“I moved on her like a bitch（像个碧池狂吻她）”猛地闯进我的脑海。我当时激动得，跟参加电视竞赛在十万火急的关头突然想到答案一样，大叫“天啊天啊！我知道了！”我的乐队成员就说：“肯定又是句脏话。”我说：“确实有点脏。”然后我想了想，又说：“也不叫脏。如果不过审，也是因为我们一字不落地引述了自由世界领头羊的胡言乱语。”这就是这首歌的本质。不是歌词荒谬，而是现实本身就不正常。

6. “Be My Mistake”

This song feels particularly vulnerable, a ballad that plays like you’re singing to just one person. What were you writing about?

这首歌听起来尤其细腻脆弱，就像只唱给一个人听的一首民谣。那么这首歌讲了什么？

“Be My Mistake” is just about guilt. It’s about when you are a young person and you struggle sometimes to figure out what you really want. And sometimes, like a lot of things, it requires you to make a mistake before you actually understand what you have. And then maybe you push people away, and then you realize that the idea of a casual relationship with somebody is just not really something that you want.

“Be My Mistake”讲的是内疚。我们年轻的时候都曾迷茫，不知道自己究竟想要什么。而很多时候，我们都是走了弯路才真正明白自己拥有了什么。比如你跟别人亲热完就把他／她推开，之后又意识到你想要的远不止那转瞬即逝的火花。

The arrangement is very sparse. It’s mostly just your vocals and acoustic guitar.

这首歌的编曲简单轻柔，基本都是你的歌唱和原声吉他。

I love Nick Drake and shit like that, but I’m not into your modern singer-songwriter dude. So I always stylistically stay away from it, but then I realized that’s where a lot of the truth is, if you do it right. I want people to feel personally addressed. If you’re going to tell the truth like that, you can’t dress it up.

我喜欢Nick Drake的风格，对现代的创作型歌手没什么兴趣。所以我的曲风向来和后者相去甚远。但后来我发现，只要写得好，也能写出很多内容的。我希望人们听歌时能置身其中。如果我想传递这些事实，就得舍弃一些乐趣。

7. “Sincerity Is Scary”

This song plays as something of a thought spiral, like you’re imagining two sides of a conversation.

这首歌听起来像一场思想交锋，而你似乎在想象对话的双方。

It’s about me trying to denounce all of my postmodernism of being sarcastic instead of sincere. It’s me having a go at myself. And it’s wholesome! It’s good for you! It’s good food! It’s just nice to hear a pop star—or a rock star, or whatever I am—worrying about whether he’s meeting his potential of being nice. I like that.

这首歌关乎自我批判，我在尝试谴责自己偏执且反真诚的后现代主义思想。这可是件好事！对流行歌手或者摇滚歌手（随便你们怎么叫我）来说，自我批判本身就是件好事。而我就喜欢这么做。

This song features jazz Trumpet player Roy Hargrove, who passed away earlier this month. What was your working relationship with him like?

爵士小号手Roy Hargrove为本曲演奏，他在本月早些时候离开了人世（本文写于2018年11月），与他合作是什么样的体验呢？

So intense. You’d get him in the room and you’d be so scared. He did the Trumpets on D’Angelo’s Voodoo, which is the most iconic brass section for us ever. He was the greatest musician I’ve ever been in a room with, by a mile. It’s the first time that somebody who’s actively brought something to the 1975 sonically has passed. Something died in the music, and it made me really sad.

感觉非常紧张。他一站到房间里，我就开始害怕了。他为迪·安格罗（D'Angelo）的专辑《Voodoo》吹过小号，那段管弦乐太厉害了。在我合作过的音乐家中，他是最伟大的，比我厉害很多。很多人为The 1975的音乐带来了有力的新元素，他是其中第一位离开人世的。我能感觉到，音乐中有一些东西消亡了，实在是悲哀。

8. “I Like America & America Likes Me”

Has touring changed the way you look at America compared to other countries?

巡演怎样改变了你对美国的看法？和其他的国家相比呢？

If everybody did what I did for a job, there would be less of a divide. That sounds like a really fucking massive statement to make, but what I’m saying is: If you do the same thing in different places all the time, it’s exactly the fucking same thing. Every night looks, smells, sounds, reacts, and operates exactly the same way. Yeah, I notice the way that people have darker hair in Mexico than they have in Scandinavia. Of course. But the things that you notice are the similarities. Personality-wise, there’s differences, but we’re all worried about the same shit. Everyone’s just scared of dying!

如果每个人都像我一样（以音乐为生），这个世界就不会那么分裂了。这听起来非常地大而空，但我的意思是；如果你在不同的地方一直做着同样的事，那你就（哔——）实在重复同一件事呀！每一晚的模样、气味和音韵都无异，发生的事都是千篇一律。的确，我注意到墨西哥的人们也许比斯堪的纳维亚人的皮肤颜色更深（废话…），但是你最先注意到的是大家的相似之处。从性格上来说，大家有所不同，但是我们都担心一样的事：大家都怕死！（译注：Matty这句话呼应了本首歌的歌词）

Your voice is also heavily Auto-Tuned in this song. What do you like about that effect?

这首歌里，你的声音有很浓重的电音（Auto-Tune）效果。你喜欢这个效果的什么地方呢？

Not only does it tune your voice, it stops it, compresses it, punctuates it. It turns it into an instrument. But also, this song started out as an homage to SoundCloud rap. It’s the sound of America to me at the moment. I was almost going to put it out with just mumble lyrics, to see how far I could take it.

Auto-Tune不仅会调音，还会截断、压缩、打断你的声音，这就像乐器一样。不过，这首歌最初是想致敬“模糊说唱（SoundCloud rap，又称Mumble rap）”。对我来说，这种声音就代表着当下的美国。我差一点想把歌词也模糊地唱出来，看看自己能玩儿多大。

9. “The Man Who Married a Robot/Love Theme”

This is a spoken Word track recited by Siri about a lonely man who falls in love with the internet. How much do you identify with that character?

这段诵读词（Spoken Word）由Siri朗读，是一个人与互联网相爱的故事。你和这个角色有共鸣吗？

Probably more than I’d like to. It’s just pointing out how fucking weird things are by that removal of the human experience—just hearing a robot saying “cooked animals” on this track is a bad vibe, right? Why is it a bad vibe? This is the question I’m asking. It’s the acknowledgement of an already existing dystopian reality. It sounds like a warning of what a future could be, but you realize it’s exactly what we’re living in.

我的共鸣也许比自己想得还要强。这首歌只是想指出，把人类体验去除后，事情会变得有多（哔——）奇怪：听着一个机器说出“烹饪动物的肉”多奇怪啊？为什么会感觉这么不好呢？这才是我想问的问题。这首歌展现了一种已有的反乌托邦现实：最初听的时候，这首歌就像一种糟糕的未来；但之后你就会意识到，这就是我们现在的世界。

Where did the idea for this monologue come from?

你们是怎么想到做这个独白的？

It was going to be my dad reading it and then it was going to be me doing spoken Word. But I was like, “fuck that, sounds lame.” And then we were like, “Who should it be?” We just knew immediately. Because earlier this year, post-rehab, I was obsessed with the 2020s, like the idea that this next decade is going to be some retro-future kind of idea. I had, like, purple hair and an orange coat and I was like, “Everything’s going to be fucking super future!” I was just on that kick. I was like, “Robots, robots, robots.”

原本想让我爸来读，之后想让我来读，但之后我想；“这听起来就挺没劲儿的。”然后我们就有主意了。因为今年（2018年）早些时候，我在戒毒回来之后，我对2020年代非常着迷，感觉将来的10年将会是复古与未来风的结合体。我当时头发染紫了，穿着橙色外套，当时想的是：“这世界会（哔——）超级未来风！！！”顺着这股劲儿，我就想到了“机器人”的点子。

As a band so closely tied to the internet, do you feel like this is the album where you turn against it?

The 1975和网络密切接轨，但在这首歌里，你们是和互联网决裂了么？

I am really just asking questions. What’s weird to me is the stuff that we just get used to. When I first heard that robot voice on OK Computer, it was like, eugh! [jumps back] That’s fucking scary! The idea of a synthesized voice is scary. But now, you could have this track on in the background and not even fucking realize! People put these voices in their kitchen and they’re like, “GET ME EGGS,” and the robot’s like, “OK.”

我真的只是想问些问题。大家都习惯的这些事情一直让我感觉很奇怪。我第一次听到《OK Computer》（Radiohead的一张专辑）里的机器人时，第一反应是：“妈呀！[往回缩]这太可怕了吧！”人工合成的声音让我很恐惧。但是现在，你拿这首歌当背景音乐，都不会发现有什么不对的地方！人们都会在厨房里说：“把我的鸡蛋拿来”。然后机器人就会回答：“好的。”

It’s also difficult because, as a songwriter, it just poses questions. Katy Perry will do a song where she’ll say “epic fail” or something like that, but Leonard Cohen’s new record isn’t going to come out and reference Facetime, right? But in order to be really, really true about the human experience, he would kind of have to, if he was talking about a relationship: “Oh my love, far away, in a distant land… I could get in touch with you in a second!” The internet has completely changed every perspective of how we relate to one another.

不过，作为作曲者，让这首歌提出问题也很困难。水果姐（Katy Perry）也许会在歌里唱“惨败”之类的歌词，但是Leonard Cohen的新歌可不会提到视频通话，对么？但如果他想在歌词中忠实地还原（当代的）人类感受，他可能就需要写这样的歌词：“哦宝贝，你在千里之外，但我们即刻便可见到对方面孔！”互联网的确改变了我们人际交往的方式。

10. “Inside Your Mind”

The lyrics on this song sound kind of obsessive. You seesaw between love and violence: “I’ve had dreams where there’s blood on you/All those dreams where you’re my wife.”

这首歌的歌词听起来，很像是对一个人的迷恋。你在爱情与暴力之间来回跳跃：“梦境中的你满身血迹/梦中的你是我的妻子”

“Inside Your Mind” is just the idea of sometimes wanting to know what your partner is thinking so much that you want to smash their head open to look. I liked that as a metaphor. I like the idea of morbidly romantic stuff sometimes. I explained it to my girlfriend, and she found it quite sexy.

《Inside Your Mind》这首歌想写的是：有些时候你非常想知道爱人的脑海中想的是什么，甚至想砸开Ta们的大脑以求一窥。我喜欢这个比喻。我喜欢有时候浪漫的极度会有些病态。我和女朋友解释了一下，她觉得这很性感。

11. “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)”

This is a song about heroin addiction where you sing about a character named “Danny.” Who are you referring to?

这首歌以heroin为主题，你唱的是一个叫“Danny”角色的故事。你指的是什么呢？

I think I'm trying to consciously hide it behind being somebody else, writing about their struggle and their strife. Like, “So I’ve got this friend, right? And he’s got this really weird rash on his gooch?” [laughs] That kind of vibe. So it’s like, “Well tell your friend that he should...” But it’s quite obvious it’s about me, because there’s been a real reluctance for me to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about being a heroin addict for five years—having actual nightmares of the idea of it being uncovered. So there was a humorous reluctance to disclose it in this song.

我感觉我在写歌时，有意识地借别人的艰苦斗争来掩盖自己的感情。就像有时候和别人说：“我有个朋友，他在裆部那里起了个奇怪的疹子……”[笑]就是这种感觉。当你回答的时候，嘴上说的是：“那告诉你朋友，Ta应该……”其实大家都知道，我在说自己的事儿，只是不愿意明着说而已。我也不想谈自己那五年，一直对海*因上瘾，甚至会做噩梦，梦到别人发现这件事。所以在这首歌里，这种不愿意倾诉的感情还有些好玩。

What were you trying to express about addiction in this song that you hadn’t heard before?

在这首你从未听过的歌里，你想传达什么关于毒瘾的内容呢?

I wouldn’t have written about heroin unless I had gotten clean. “I do it” was never a good enough reason for me to talk about it. I don’t think Kurt Cobain tried to romanticize drug addiction; because he was so publicly the coolest person in the world, and grunge was so dark, he was telling his truth. Whereas Pete Doherty was a different character. That was the thing that I was always scared of—being an obnoxious celebration of that kind of sickness. I just felt so lucky. I hadn’t lost anything really. And that’s normally why people go to rehab, because they lost so much they can’t bear to lose anything else. But I was lucky.

（以前）除非我完全戒了毒，不然我不会写任何关于海*因的歌。“我做了”这个理由，它对我来说，从来都没有好到值得我当谈资的地步；我也不认为Kurt Cobain有试过把毒瘾描绘得多么浪漫：毕竟他在公众眼里可是世界上最酷的人，垃圾摇滚本来就很黑暗，他说的的确是实话。而Peter Doherty又是另一种风格。这也是一直以来我特别害怕的一点——成为一个让人讨厌的毒瘾歌颂者。我只是觉得自己很幸运，因为我并没有失去什么。这也是通常人们去戒毒的原因，他们失去了太多，而且已经无法承受更多的了。但是还好，我很幸运。

12. “Surrounded by Heads and Bodies”

This seems like a rehab song. Is Angela, the person you’re singing to here, somebody you met there?

这首歌听起来像是戒毒之歌。你在这首歌中唱的Angela，是你在那儿见过的人吗?

Yeah, it was only me and this other person—me in my own compound, and she had her own compound across the way. We rarely saw each other apart from some shared therapy, and she was such a beautiful, lovely woman. I felt a real connection and an empathy with her. And we soon found out that we lived on the same road in Manchester! And we were in Barbados. It was crazy man. One road in the whole world.

是的，当时就是我和她，我们都有自己的隔间，她的在我对面。除了偶尔一起治疗，我们几乎见不到对方。她真是一个漂亮又可爱女人。我能感受到我们之间的联系和共鸣。之后很快就发现，原来我们还住在曼彻斯特的同一条街！我们都在巴巴多斯。你敢信吗，真的难以想象。世界这么大，我们却住在同一条街。

The title of this song is from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. What significance does that book hold for you?

这首歌的名字来自David Foster的《Infinite Jest（无尽的玩笑）》。那本书对你有什么意义?

I was reading that when I was in rehab. There was no one there. It was me and my nurses, who’d come in and check on me, and then Angela, miles away. I was surrounded by no one, and the book was just open on the front page, as most copies of Infinite Jest are.

我在康复中心读到的。那里一个人也没有。只有我和护士们，她们会过来给我做检查。然后就是安吉拉，她在很远的地方。我身边没有其他人。这本书就像大多数《Infinite Jest（无尽的玩笑）》一样，只有扉页被翻看过。

The quote comes from the literal opening lines of the book.

所以歌词里引用的话来自书的开头几行。

That was kind of the joke. Because nobody reads it all the way! Everyone our age has got a battered, quarter-read copy of Infinite Jest.

这是个玩笑啦。因为没有人会一直读下去！我们这个年龄段的每个人应该都有一本磨烂了的，却只读了四分之一的《Infinite Jest（无尽的玩笑）》

13. “Mine”

I didn’t expect a jazz standard from you guys.

我没想到你们会出一首爵士标准曲（Jazz Standard）。

Me neither. It came from our love of Coltrane. I always use the magpie analogy: A magpie will collect a diamond or a piece of glass or a piece of foil—it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s shiny and attractive. It’s the same thing with us—as long as it’s beautiful. And I wanted a standard, because imagine writing a new Gershwin song, imagine a new one of those existing. That hasn’t happened since—it’s difficult to say. Was it Mariah Carey’s Christmas song? That’s probably the last one. “Hey There Delilah?” That was big. [laughs]

我也没想到。这个想法来源于我们对Coltrane的喜爱。我总是用喜鹊这个例子:喜鹊会收集钻石、玻璃或小片的金属箔——只要有光泽和吸引力就行了。这个东西到底是什么，其实并不重要。我们也是一样的，只要歌有美感就行了。不过也要有一个标准：想象一下，有人要写一首新的Gershwin式的歌：那可很久没出现过了。或者是一首要媲美Mariah Carey的圣诞歌吗?这可能是最近的一个例子。或者《Hey There Delilah（嘿黛丽拉）》呢？那就很了不起了。(笑)

14. “I Couldn’t Be More in Love”

The vocals on this track are really intense. I don’t think I’ve heard you sing like that before.

这首歌的人声部分很激烈。我感觉以前应该没听你这样唱歌。

It’s because I struggle to sing like that. Some people can just sing and it’s the most natural thing in the world to them. But in order for me to get people to believe me, I have to really, really try. Those vocals were actually from the day before I went to rehab. To be fair, I sang it better when I got out, but there was just something in those vocals. It was kind of guttural. I was really upset and scared. I feel like there’s a hopelessness in the vocal performance.

因为我唱得不好。有些人天生就会唱歌，这对他们来说是最自然的事情。但为了让人们相信我，我必须非常非常努力。这首歌其实是从我去戒毒所的前一天录的。说句公道话，我刚（戒毒）出来的时候唱得更好，但是这首歌的人声中也有很重要的东西，有种喉音的感觉。我那时真的非常沮丧又害怕。可能在这首歌当中有一种绝望感吧。

It’s also one of the slickest sounding songs on the record.

这也是唱片上最动听的歌曲之一。

Yeah it’s weird, isn’t it? It has some Eric Clapton moments.

是啊这挺奇怪的，对吗?这首歌有些神似Eric Clapton的瞬间。

Especially with the guitar solo.

特别是在吉他独奏的部分。

That’s my solo, as well. Again, I don’t want to celebrate the part when I was using, but there were some moments we captured where I was on the brink, and there’s a real intensity to it. That was one take. It was the demo, and I just fucking nailed it for some reason. Like anything, it’s a series of little perfect accidents.

那也是我的部分。我想重申，我提到这部分不是想对自己大加赞赏，但有时候，当我正处于崩溃的边缘，那时捕捉到的声音才有一种真实的紧张感。当时只录了一遍，原本是初版的录音样带，但我他妈不知怎么搞的就搞定了。就像其他事情一样，这也是一系列完美的意外。

Do you think you’ll rip the solo yourself when you play it live?

你觉得在现场演奏时，自己会在独奏部分全情投入吗?

Oh, I’ll rip it to fuck.

哦，那是当然。

15. “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)”

This song instantly felt like a classic to me, like something that has always existed.

对我来说，这首歌立刻就像是一首经典，像是一直存在的东西。

It really makes sense, right? “I always want to die sometimes…” I don’t know why I didn’t write that earlier.

这很有道理，对吧? “有时候我总是想死……”我不知道为什么我没有早点写这句话 。

It feels very Britpop.

这听起来很有英伦摇滚的感觉。 

Well, it did. But then, in the production, I was actually quite clever, because it sits in the middle. It’s not a “Bittersweet Symphony” or an Oasis song really, because it’s not as dark. But lyrically, vocally, it’s so Manchester. But then I got David [Campbell], who did the strings for “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls, to do the strings for it. I was thinking, “I have the potential for this to be cinematic. Why not do a gritty, English ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’?” It just made a lot of sense. As I was putting the strings on it, I was like, “Is this our big song?”

确实。但在制作过程中，我觉得自己还挺机智的，因为这首歌融合了不同的风格。它不完全像《Bittersweet Symphony》或绿洲乐队（Oasis）的风格，因为它没有那么黑暗。但在歌词和人声上，这首歌具有很强的曼彻斯特风。后来我邀请到David Campbell来做弦乐部分，他为咕咕玩偶公司(Goo Goo Dolls)的《爱丽丝》(Iris)做过弦乐。我在想，“这首歌有潜力拍成电影。为什么不做的坚决一点，直接做成英国版的《I Don ' t Want to Miss a Thing（我不想错过任何事情）》？”这意义重大。当我拨动琴弦的时候，我就在问自己，“这是我们的重头戏吗?”