Before some diehard fan I didn’t know existed calls me out on this, I’ll admit it myself: this is not the original version of Take It Apart. That version is lost in a real-life parallel universe: the world of old hard drives. Strewn inside the drawers and cupboards of people who treasure memory enough to backup all their music, photos, ideas, and pirated films in the first place is an entire Earth of lost information, never to be recovered. When I started this project I found school essays from the age of 14, poems written to exes, a play my friends and I had attempted to write when drunk, and so so many Photo Booth pictures with that effect on that makes you look like a pop art print. But having scoured my house for a few days testing every old box that looked vaguely electronic, I was unable to find Take It Apart 1. In fact, I wouldn’t have known this wasn’t the original version unless it was helpfully labelled ‘Take It Apart NEW’ on my old iTunes.

Before we continue, I’m going to use this opportunity to preserve the memory of one more song that could never be found: Take Me With You. My memory would put this as maybe my 6th song ever, so I really wanted to find it. But it had disappeared. I bring it up because it has one good memory attached to it. In science classes pre-6th form I sat next to a friend who would not allow me to talk about my music without interrupting me by singing the last chorus of Take Me With You. He especially enjoyed singing the ‘oooh’ at the end of: ‘Take me with youuuuu, oooooohh’. He has continued doing this ever since – it has been 9 years. In fact, I had completely forgotten the song even existed until one day he told me ‘I’ve always preferred your early works’ and sung it again. RIP Take Me With You.

There are a few clues that Take It Apart is actually a newer version of the original: The drumming has been redone, and is a bit more in time than I would expect from a song of this era. The piano entry may or may not have been in the original, I suspect it wasn’t. The strings seem a bit lush compared to what you’ve heard before. There’s an effect on the vocals in the bridge. The singing I’m sure was redone, although it’s still pretty poor. There’s some programmed percussion.

But the main part of the song is the same. It’s got some catchy bits. The big harmonies at the end almost work and remind me vaguely of The Lighthouse Family. The lyrics are typically non-sensical:

‘Just take it apart, just take it back home.
Bring what you want, just bring it back home’

sounds like classic Oasis to me:

‘We’re singing things that sound big, but you’re not sure why,
and the sun shiiiiiiiinnneees’.

In fact, listening to this song now I had the sudden realisation that the ‘It dies if you don’t water it’ line was literally inspired by a plant with a smiley face attached to it that a friend of mine bought me at the time.
Needless to say, it died.