WE'RE GOING TO MISS YOU
CAS JIMMC 24 - We're Going To Miss You / Wisdom Of The Throat
CD JIMCD 24 - We're Going To Miss You / Wisdom Of The Throat / Top Of The World (live at the Embassy Rooms)
CD JIMDD 24 - We're Going To Miss You / Pocketful of Lemons / We're Going To Miss You (Eno's Version)
RELEASE DATE : DECEMBER 1999
CHART POSITION : 48
Initially not seen as an immediate choice as a single, the favourable reviews of the track in Millionaires press changed that view.
The band went back into the studio to rerecord the track with Tim adding a more menacing higher-pitched voice to the verses whilst maintaining the chorus intact. The single was backed with two new songs Pocketful of Lemons and Wisdom of the Throat recorded by Tim and Michael on an eight-track at Tim's house, a live version of Top of the World recorded at the London Embassy Rooms in October and the original Brian Eno mix of the title track. Artwork for the single was provided by Subliminal.
The video features the band being hypnotised and then playing the song whilst under the spell, being told by the hypnotist to make various weird shapes and perform oddly. Unfortunately, the video didn't really work and did not get any significant MTV airplay.
Despite being released on the back of the sold-out arena tour and inspired sessions for GLR and Radio 1's Jo Whiley, the decision to release the single the week before Christmas and with a £2.99 price tag were a recipe for chart disaster. Radio 1 had not A-listed the single and the band gave a muted performance on TFI Friday.
The single limped to number 48 in the charts, James lowest position since signing to Fontana in 1990.
REVIEWS
NME
Billed as Tim Booth's masterpiece of sarcastic spite and rapier wit, the latest James release sounds as fresh and vital as the other 798 singles they have delighted us with in the last five years. From atop a surging wave of warm orchestral melody, the loon-dancing karma comedian directs a volley of poison-tipped verbal darts at, erm, somebody who quite clearly isn't as great as they think they are. Himself, perhaps? Singing with breathy restraint for once, Booth sounds less smug than normal on a lyrical trifle which calls to mind his former mentor Morrissey in one of his 'The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get' moods.
Defiant on the surface, then, but tired beneath.
MELODY MAKER
reviewed by Huey and Mackie of Fun Lovin Criminals
James, on the other hand, have had the songbook open on the page marked 'big, epic, sing-along choruses' for the last 15 years or so. This is not one of their best, going through the numbers in a radio-friendly surge of predictable bluster.
H: Corny, corny, corny..... this is going off I'm afraid.
M: They're huge, aren't they? They're just doing what they do.
H: It's real easy to do that. But what's the point?