The Stories Behind The Songs

Swim 

(Runga)

"This is an older song and when I first recorded it, it was a bossa nova! The album version is dark and brooding, generally much better". 

Roll Into One

" I call it my Cliff Richard song. I find it quite comic because it's exceedingly sweet". 

Suddenly Strange

(Runga)

"I was thinking of the way that the Beatles used strings and wanted to emulate that. The song is about when you've been with someone too long - the relationship has gone stale - and you realise that you've got to break up, but you want to do that and keep his stereo he's left at your house! 

(The line) "Fire inside my shoes" .....I think it's like people have itchy feet...yeah, like that. 

-And how many stereos have you managed to keep, as in Suddenly Strange? 

"Aah right, from ex-boyfriends (laughs). I have one amplifier, and I had two guitars... " 

Sorry

(Runga)

"I play drums on this. My style of drumming is not really clever, but I don't think that drumming needs to be. It's about hitting things. It's an adolescent kind of drumming, it's just raw. I was producing the album and just being a bossy little shit - I wanted to do everything. I wanted to play the drums not because I'm a good drummer but because nobody was going to tell me 'no'! 

"Looking round the pantry for a box of sorries" 

-"Well you know, to me apologizing is just the weirdest thing to do in the world, and I kind of like the idea of just being able to buy them". 

"Off-the-shelf apologies?"

"Yeah, right" 

Heal 

(Runga)

"I wanted to use samples on the record because while I was recording it I was already thinking of my next album and the need to keep this album quite diverse, so that whatever the next album is like, it's not a quantum leap from Drive". 

Delight 

(Runga)

"This song was born out of an acoustic solo performance. It was really hard to put instrumentation behind it. I stripped it back to just a vocal and added as little as I could possibly get away with. Without You This song is so sweet, its disgusting!"

WITHOUT YOU

(Runga / Horgan)

"This song is so sweet, its disgusting!"

YOU

(Runga)

No Bio

Take It Out Sometimes

(Runga)

No Bio 

ORDINARY GIRL

(Runga)

No Bio

ALL FALL DOWN

(Runga)

No bio

DUST

(Runga)

No Bio

CLOSE THE DOOR, PUT OUT THE LIGHT

(Runga)

No Bio

I DON'T MEAN IT

(Runga)

No Bio

MAKING A SCENE

(Runga)

No Bio

WELCOME TO MY KITCHEN

(Runga)

No Bio

Lonely Lola Cherry Cola Girl

(Runga)

No Bio

Good Morning Bay

Dan Wilson & Bic Runga

From the soundtrack of the Movie "American Pie".

This quote from Campbell Smith, Bic's manager, at the official Sony Music site message board on 2 February, 2000:

"the person responsible for the initial contact for getting 'sway' on american pie was a lovely and talented person at warner chappel music in los angeles (bic's publishers) called joei alvarez. we love her!"

and...

"'good morning baby' was written by bic and dan wilson from semisonic. dan wrote most of the lyrics, so the idea behind it is his...visit the semisonic site and ask dan."