Joe Matera is an old friend from Australia and one of our Korgis co-writers.
We had Heritage Chart hits here in the UK with ‘Always a Sunny Day’ (#4) and ‘Letter to Geelong’ (#1), so when Joe first met up with me in person in 2025, we set out on another joint venture.
Joe had come up with an unusual guitar figure, that became the chorus to this song - but you can hear it exactly as the demo during the intro. Joe and I began with that and hammered out the lyrics for the chorus, and also a verse. We also messed with rough chords for the middle 8, but if I recall it was the day of my gig at Chapel Arts, Bath so we cut it short. I later finished off verse 2 and solidified the middle 8.
I then sent it to Joe, who put some unique sounding slide guitar on that whole section, which reminded me of the oceans - that is how we ended up with whales in the video - and his vocal parts.
Joe made a second trip in early 2026, so we used some of the time to shoot some green screen video of us both.
Although the recording is still work in progress you can check it out here: https://youtu.be/_Foq0tKu3-E?si=HCw2nFnHVSwpjykM

Lyrically, this song centres on ecology and seeing the warning signs that surround us every day. By the way, a lot of the verse lines overlap but end with the same words, which is why some of the rhyming schemes look funny!
I am not going to do a line by line analysis as it is all pretty obvious. We live busy noisy lives that have become completely dissacociated with the planet. Our food production, our pollution, our 24/7 lifestyle, and the sheer weight of numbers. No wonder the planet is ‘creaking’.

Listen
Listen
Listen to the sound of the planet creaking       
Listen 
Listen
Listen - Can you hear your ancestors speaking 

Now day looks like night                          
Dare we open the door                           
Can't climb to the light anymore           
There's no time - anymore                       
Through the rush and the noise              
I won't be able to hear your voice till I learn to     

CHORUS

On this planet called Earth
Are we really alone?                                   
So teach us to care for our home            
For this place we call home
They were respectful and proud                 
Were all too busy with too much choice   
and shouting loud to                                    

CHORUS