ONLY YOU
From the album 'Portishead'
[4:59]
LYRICS:
We suffer everyday
What is it for?
These crimes of illusion
Are fooling us all
And now I am weary
And I feel like I do
It's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
The size of our fight
It's just a dream
We've crushed everything I can see
In this morning selfishly
How we've failed and I feel like I do
It's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
Now that we've chosen to take all we can
This shade of autumn
A stale bitter end
Years of frustration lay down side by side
And it's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
It's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
FRENCH VERSION:
Nous souffrons tout les
jours
A quoi ca sert
Ces crimes d'illusions
Nous trompent tous
Maintenant je suis las
C'est tout ce que je ressens
It's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
L'ampleur de notre guerre
Ce n'est qu'un rêve
On a tout ecrasé
Ca je peux le voir egoistement
Nous avons echoué
C'est tout ce que je ressens
It's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
On a choisi de prendre tout ce qu'on pouvait
Ce teint d'automne a une fin amer
Des années de frustration s'allongent côte
à côte
It's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
It's only you
Who can tell me apart
And it's only you
Who can turn my wooden heart
CREDITS:
Written by
G Barrow/B Gibbons/A Utley/K Thorn/T
Hardson/D Stewart
Musicians
G Barrow : Drums
A Utley : Guitar, bass & rhodes
J Haggot : Organ
Samples
Ken Thorne from "Inspector
Clouseau" courtesy of MCA Classics
The Pharcyde from "She Said"
courtesy of EMI Publishing/Delicious Vinyl
COMMENTS:
My favourite. Geoff
Love the song and the cut. Adrian
I like the feedback at the end. Dave
Usually we give Beth the backing
tracks to lay vocals over, but she came to us
with an almost-finished track for this one -
she's got a digital 8-track, a drum kit, a
bass, a guitar, a sampler and a small
keyboard in her house. It was a cool, very
French-soundtrack-style song with acoustic
piano in a kind of waltz time signature. We
changed it around to make it fit more with
the other songs on the album. Geoff does
these completely inspirational scratches on
this track - just ferociously difficult. Adrian
It's got a sample of Inspector
Clouseau on it - it's the only track that's
got samples from other people on it. Geoff
OTHER VERSIONS:
Only You (Edit)
Available on 'Only You'.
Only You
(French version)
Available on 'Only You' (French promo).
SINGLE
INFORMATION:
Release date:
2 February 1998 (Europe) / 2 March 1998 (UK)
Tracklisting:
Only You (Edit) / Elysium (Parlour Talk
Remix) / Only You (NYC) /
Only You
Credits:
Written by G Barrow / B Gibbons / A Utley
(Chrysalis Music Ltd) & Thorne (MCA
Classics) Hardson/Stewart (EMI
publishing/Delicious Vinyl)
Performed by B Gibbons vocals / G Barrow
drums / A Utley guitar, bass & rhodes / J
Baggott organ / C Deamer drums / J Barr bass.
Engineered by Dave McDonald.
Produced by Portishead.
Only You (PNYC) orchestrated by Nick Ingman /
engineered by K Grant. Recorded at The
Roseland Ballroom 24 July 1997.
Elysium (Parlour Talk Remix) Re-mixed by
Scoutleader Deed For Undivided Attention.
VIDEO
INFORMATION: [From Director
File]
Director:
Chris Cunningham
Storyline:
For the duration of the song we are placed in
the middle of a night time dream world, which
has it’s own sense of logic, but is far
removed from reality that is has a disturbing
resonance. Our first shot as we fade up is a
small child. He is moving toward us down a
darkened alleyway illuminated by blue light,
emanating from large surrounding windows. His
movements are in complete sync with the
music.
By reversing and
changing speed he slips backwards and forward
in time with the scratching. Constantly
watching his feet as he moves, he looks like
he is playing a weird game with himself. As
he gets closer we see his puffy, pale
features ripple and flow. His hair swimming
around in the air as he slips and slides
perfectly controlled and surreally slow,
moving gently, in and out of the soft light.
The alleyway is real
but by now we know the boy is curiously
alien. He has been filmed in an underwater
tank in slow motion and transferred back into
the scene, the shadows hiding any trace of
post-tricky. Using frame cutting to speed him
up and slow him down his fluid, bizarre
movement are co-ordinated perfectly to the
track’s relentless slips and restarts.
He will be moving to the beat throughout the
video and will set the pace, visually.
One of the recurring
images in the video is the windows which
surround the scene. Whenever we hear the old
soundtrack samples in the track we pan over
to them where we see the characters in the
bright fluorescent lit rooms, filled with
water. Our boy passes them and the characters
watch him as he passes.
Only You takes place in
a dark alley. A full moon illuminates the
scene as men observe from high windows. Beth
Gibbons sings of a frozen relationship; as is
she. A boy is also featured. Cunnningham
remarks: "I saw the video as soon as I
heard the track. It sounded like it came from
underwater, and one of the samples gave me
the distinct impression that I was being
watched." For this video, Beth and the
teenage boy were filmed submerged in a huge
water tank. These shots were then
super-imposed over the dark alley to create a
world that is as foreign as it is familiar.
During the shoot, it
was a 'nightmare' as usual: "It was a
nightmare, we couldn't communicate through
the water, there was divers splashing around,
Beth had snot bubbles coming out of her nose,
I was sitting there thinking - what the fuck
am I going to do with this, it's a
disaster." [Sleaze Nation] Cunningham
meticulously airbrushed out the air bubbles
and worked his magic in post-production. The
effect creates a video that churns murkily
with the song and Beth's pain-drenched,
isolated voice.
Before All Is Full of
Love, Only You was Cunningham's favorite
among his own work. "It's the closest
I've come to getting what was in my head
across on film," he says. "It's one
of the only thing I've done that I wouldn't
mind sitting down and watching. The tranquil
side of my brain is really the stronger part
of my brain." [Merge]
Comments:
I think this one is my favorite. In a way I
think it's the best track I've been given to
do a video for. It was all shot in an
underwater tank, which really gave it this
great ghostly quality. As kind of ultimate
reality, that was the place I had the most
fun in while I was making a video and the
atmosphere is closest to the majority of
things I want to do. It was based on a
recurring dream from my childhood. I was
completely on my own. No one around. Walking
down the street in the village I grew up in,
feeling I couldn't breath, and every time I
looked up I'd see surfaces of water about 50
meters above my head. It was quite frequent.
That video is quite close to home, I suppose.
[From RES Magazine] Cunningham
Credits:
Director: Chris Cunningham
Producer: Cindy Burnay
Director of photography: Simon Chaudoir
Set designer: Chris Oddy.
Post production: at The
Mill
Offline editor: Gary Knight at Final Cut.
Commissioner: Go! Beat Records.
Awards:
1999 D&AD Awards: Pop Promos : Direction
1999 Music Week CAD Awards: Best Dance Video
Nominations:
1999 D&AD Awards: Pop Promos: Special
Effects
1999 Music Week CAD Awards: Best Video of
1998
Availability:
Available on the 'PNYC' DVD.
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