I’ve attached a picture of a beautiful sunset so you’ll have something to distract you from this song. The only way Never Leave could be more boring is if it simply started over when it got to the end and played through once more. Rewind back to the beginning to see what I mean.

The picture, though! Gosh it’s beautiful. The way the golden-hour sunbeams wriggle out from behind the surprisingly dense, dark clouds, thereby transforming them, removing any sense of foreboding they might otherwise evoke, and imbuing them instead with the lazy contentment of a late-summer’s evening, all silver linings and open blues. Beneath, you might imagine the sea teeming with hidden life, a world of plenty, all things in their right place, chaotically vivacious but perfectly formed. Or maybe not, maybe for you it is an infinitely deep blank space, the sort of space we hope to find inside our minds when too many things are pressing into our consciousness. I guess for me it’s both, a blank slate which promises endless potential, a site of calm positivity.

To be frank, this stock ‘beautiful sunset’ image brings more romance to Never Leave than anything in the recording, but it is also completely in keeping with the disgustingly bland brand of romance that the song promotes, and which should never be accompanied by anything except a melody so undeniable that we forgive (or forget) the lyrics (video at bottom).

Never Leave was a band song, which is why the bass playing is quite good, and why we get a little burst of backing harmonies during the trudging reprise of ‘what you make me feel’ towards the end.

I believe this song was promoted only in a very limited way at the time. We certainly never played it live at any gigs, thank god.

All in all, a song that makes you wish the sun would just bloody set already.