Thom: That song was pretty much mine. Originally, I wrote and four-tracked it with a Soul II Soul rhythm underneath, taken off a 12-inch. I honestly don't know now where the lyrics came from. It was something we didn't know what to do with. We did a version in the studio one day, didn't like it, left it. We didn't even listen back to it; we finished it and just said, "This is fucking dreadful."

Ed: It was over two years ago, wasn't it? We recorded it with our sound engineer.

Thom: They'd just put a new skin on the bass drum, and that was the inspiration for the sound. I played the opening bit acoustic, which we thought was hilarious. Colin and Phil laughed, 'cause they thought it sounded like Rod Stewart.

Jon: I played solo, but that was the same guitar line that Thom had come up with on his four-track.

Ed: "High and Dry" was one of the few tracks we've done where we haven't actually been in the studio at the same time. We weren't really into doing the song, so we all came in, did our seperate parts, and buggered off, and our soundman put it all together.

Thom: Anyway, two years later, someone dug it up and said, "Hey, how 'bout this? It's pretty good." We were quite surprised. It was one of those things where you record something and can't even remember doing it. We had to relearn it all.

Ed: We never did another recording of it. The version on the album is the original demo version, just remixed by Sean and Paul. It's interesting, because at the time we recorded it, it didn't fit in with what we were doing, so we forgot it. But two years on, when we were putting the next album [the bends] together, it made sense.

Thom: We're still working on it live. The nicest arrangement we've had is the one we just did on Jay Leno, where it just ends on "it's the best thing that you've ever had." I always hated playing that last chorus over again. Actually, it would still be better with that Soul II Soul ryhthm.

Jon: That's why we buried the song.

Thom: Yeah, cause we couldn't do a convincing Soul II Soul rhythm. Well, we didn't really want to, so we did a dodgy Rod Stewart version and then ditched it.

Jon: So we're proud of it.

Thom: Yeah, it's all right.