There are many remnants of high civilisations in the short history of man. The Inca Cities, the Pyramids of Giza, the mighty ancient cities of Rome and Athens. Standing in the ruins of our ancestors we made somewhat surprising decisions such as 70's tower blocks and a bewildering array of car parks. They called it progress…
As Joni once said... You pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

While on holiday in Greece I had two ideas. One was inspired by our plane as it suddenly broke free of the cloud layer - this became 'Always a Sunny Day' based on an acoustic tune Joe Matera had sent me.
The 2nd turned out to be the opening number for The Korgis UN-United Nations BLUE album and was born as I wandered around a 2000 year old city on Corfu.

Many people ask that age old question - which came first. With The Korgis we like to keep each of the processes quite random, gradually refining both musically and lyrically.

So here is how this one worked its way out.

I wrote the words and rough tune for the chorus while actually wandering round a Greek ruin. I fleshed out the chords and fine-tuned the chorus lyrics when I got back home. It probably sat for 8/9 months until we started working on UN-United Nations. We knew we wanted it to be quite Beach Boys, so James and I worked on the verse chords and tune. James is brilliant with this kind of tune. This may have been the very first thing he sung. We intentionally used altered bass notes for the chords to sound  like Brian Wilson. James sung the repeated motif leading into the chorus and I found some chords in a different key to lead back to our home key. [The basic chords were Ab to F, but in order to make it more Beatles we changed to F7. Subconsciously  your ear will hear the Ab easily lead up to the home key of C as it is an abbreviated Ab Bb C!] I think I put in the middle 8 [I love to use unusual chord sequences] including lyrics later the same day after James had gone. I just used words that I liked the sound of. At this point all the verse lyrics were gobbledygook! I believe I wrote them later that night. It took about an hour. Usually the first half hour is slow as my brain tosses around ideas… then they seem to tumble out.

…and here is my train of thought, mixed in with the lyrics.

When the world began  [I liked the idea of beginning an album with this line!]
Fish on legs we crawled out from the sea
we're free
Now it's down the pan [how to cram the evolution of man into one phrase]
Two thousand years ago we held the key [Fast forward to Pyramids, The Colosseum, The Parthenon]
    Majestic creations
    inspiring greatness in nations
    Senseless relentlessly we've

Been building our mud huts, over their palaces [In modern Greece and Italy they will happily build car parks over ancient monuments]
To all of their challenges, we did rapidly fall [we should of course 'rise' to a challenge, but I love to turn the language on it's head]
Yes we're still building our mud huts, over their palaces 
Look at all we hold dear
and It's perfectly clear
How we've grown so incredibly small [another phrase inverted]

Big machines roll in [Beginning with the industrial revolution… the lie that machines would gave man more leisure time was born] 
Ignoring all, ten thousand hungry men   
Condemned
Then the beast it came
Silently it grew and spun it's web [this particular beast was the World Wide Web]
    Not so easy to reason
    The genie back into the bottle
                            Redesigning the grand plan [A.I. will decide what is best for us]
    With his flawless perception of man 

Building our mud huts, over their palaces
To all of their challenges, we did rapidly fall
Yes we're still building our mud huts, over their palaces
though we try to defend, It's a hollow pretend
We've grown so incredibly

Tense and cruel [the disconnection with fellow man via Social  Media means we can say anything we like, be that degrading or just downright stupid]
Content to be foolish
Wide-eyed and wayward [like a kid in a candy store with too much choice]
And blindly, happy to live in our..  [believing there is no other way] 

SOLO
CHORUS 1

Maybe we should find a cave
And hide so no-one sees [there IS another way!]
The ones who once were tall are now
Just standing on their knees [sounds like some politicians we all know]
Can we just stop and take a breath...
Please?  [this really was a plea to keep A.I. in the box just a little while longer]

My advice for anyone with lyrics is don't rush to commit to paper… let your brain play with it and ideas will formulate.