Arctic Monkeys' Humbug - 10 Years On: Ranking The Tracks From Worst To Best
6. Potion Approaching
Much how "Dance Little Liar" showcased Turner's descent into ever cryptic lyricism, "Potion Approaching" is also demonstrative of the frontman's frighteningly powerful gift for wordplay. You'd be hard-pressed to find an opening salvo as mystical and evocative as "I was biting the time-zone and we embellished the banks of our bloodstreams, and threw caution to the colourful..." in most forms of modern music.
It's also another display of the band's growing sensuality. It's there in the hazy backing vocals that give Turner's come-to-bed snarl a smooth mattress on which to rest its charm and the gentle unfurling of the song's seductive chorus.
Nonsense lyricism though it may be to some, it's a crowning example of its lyricist's skill at choosing words that sound good together in favour of them actually having any concrete meaning. And things were only going to get more oblique from this point. We wouldn't have to spend a generation trying to figure that one out...