Arctic Monkeys: 10 Hidden Song Meanings

1. When Alex Turner Moved Someone's Chair

Arctic monkeys
Wikipedia Commons

There are plenty of examples of seemingly mystical Turner lyrics actually having very unexciting origins when put under the spotlight. For example, That's Where You're Wrong" has the lyric "the sky's a scissor". Turner states that this was written because he could see a "lot of sky" in the flat he was living in at the time.

"Maybe cos I was writing at that angle I was on the fourth floor, I guess it's the first time I've not written on the ground floor." Turner, Q Magazine.

Even more ridiculously simple is the premise of "Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair", a concept created while Turner was on the set of indie film, Submarine:

"I said it to somebody whose chair I moved and I didn’t want them to hurt themselves.”, Turner, NME

From this Turner went on to imagine more and more outlandish and dangerous situations, creating a song with themes of trust and fate that he explores so well - all stemming from the anxiety that someone wouldn't realise he moved their chair. Not a bad song to evolve from something so mundane.

Contributor

A music grad & screenwriting masters student hoping to put his strong grasp of the online thesaurus to good use. Will write about anything you can find on a screen or a compact disc. Except the Bee Gees. He doesn't know much about them.