Arctic Monkeys - How We Wrote 'I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor'

Alex Turner: I did find like the lyrics for it like not long ago like scribbled on like a piece of paper, it was quite funny Like find like the - (Was there any different changes?) Oh yea, like loads, yeah they were all sort of stuff about like cigarettes and stuff, I don't know but erm (Not any you regretted not putting in there now?) No no no, they were all, there were some stinkers in there Arguably there still is but erm (Laughing) They, erm, it was... can't remember, I can remember recording it like the first time we did it Well cause we did it with this guy Alan Smyth in Sheffield, that we did like a lot, like all his first sort of recordings with And there was this version of it, and then when we started like, we started this first record with Like when we were beginning to sort of proper make the record, We started with James Ford and this guy Mike Crossey, in Liverpool And we had like a week and we'd been on tour and we play- we recorded like ten songs in a week or somet And we were like "this is it! we've gon- done his album" Y'know "Fucking put it out tomorrow please, yesterday if you can" And erm But everything was kinda recorded at like, did it on tape and played everything at like 300 miles an hour And it were like, it kinda, bit too like live or something I don't know And at that point, it was suggested to us that perhaps we'd like try a different avenue so then we went back with this producer called Jim Abbiss And went to a studio in Lincoln And er, and sorta, y'know sorta, recording... But y'know going through the songs and like listening to the demos And sorta tryna, you know, pick the best bits about and whatever Cause everyone were kinda really into these demos of it So we sorta wanted to get a bit of that but kinda like a better recording of it It was weird cause when we were... recording that tune The video was already like on telly for it Like cause w- people'd be like watching TV in't other room like "ahh quick we're on we're on MTV or whatever" Cause like the v- the version we did for the video Like we just made another recording like it's just us playing like a TV studio or whatever and- (It was a live thing wasn't it? The video was telling a live performance) Yeah that version of it was just like there and then So it's weird like we were tryna cut this single in one room And it was like on telly in like the other room like us "Erm, yeah, just use that" But erm, but no we did it with, er, did it again, yeah did it there with Jamie like in, in Lincoln And then that became the... version But it all came from that like drum thing on the beginning, you know like the, I mean originally, that was like the What was like the first part of that song, was like that kinda drum thing (Can you remember sorta coming up with the guitar bit and all that stuff? was that you? was that cookie or?) I play like the lead on it yeah, and like this sorta cord thing, not really, I can't really, can't remember, what, when that happened or what even like, what practice room we were in at that time really but I remember Matt playing that thing round, cause I think I guess it was like some exercise or something he'd like seen somewhere or like a version of it which he'd like sped up or somet and he were like doing it as fast as he could and then Like a lot of them songs, like then, used to come from something like that he'd play (Really?) He almosts like plays, like riffs on drums sometimes or whatever, or plays like leads or somet so (What does it mean to you now that song? at this moment in time) It's like more fun than ever to play it now Like I think I probably fell out with it for a, for a moment like somewhere along the way But I kinda Yeah I fell out with eve- I fall out with all of them at some point, but that's definitely one that like I'd never imagine like not playing it And now when it kinda comes round in sets, it's just like, fun y'know Like that's it It's erm Yeah no we all sorta really enjoy playing that And it's one of them you can like Cause some of the other songs we've written since then I guess are a bit more like complex and you have to kinda concentrate a little bit more And like think about singing in tune and like playing the right notes And that one... (Yeah) You can sorta, just like have a laugh with... few minutes (Oh cool) Still manage to murder it sometimes though, it kinda feels like a lot of them older tunes We don't play a lot of them because it feels like you can't anymore, like whatever it took to sorta write and like play them songs when we used to, 'int' there anymore And for some reason, some of them have a longer shelf life than other ones Or it sorta sometimes feel like we're doing like covers of- It feels like they're cover songs that we play like (Really?) But we kinda can't do a cover of Fake Tales of San Francisco but I think we do a pl- a pretty good I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor cover.