Born

Released: 1998

1. You Can Love Me Now 4:15
2. Turn Up The Reverb 4:10
3. Forever More 4:09
4. Born 3:51
5. Pop Song 3:32
6. Used To Call It Love 4:22
7. At Last 5:23
8. Find The Time 4:42
9. I Believe 4:23
10. Learning To Walk 4:17
11. It’s A Man’s Man’s World*
12. Love Don’t Walk This Way ’98*
*Bonus tracks on Japan CD release only. Also available on ‘You Can Love Me Now’ single.

Written by O’Maonlai, O’Braonain, O’Toole

Additional Musicians
Rob Malone – Bass
Wayne Sheehy – Drums

Produced by Hothouse Flowers/Townshend
Engineered by Cenzo Townshend
Recorded at September Sound Studios
Jake Davies – Assistant Engineer
Pete Lewis – Engineer
James Dimmock – Photography
Jody Roberts – Assistant Engineer
Dave Bascombe – Mixing

The new members
Wayne Sheehy is known for having played with 1990 and Cactus world News. He now plays with a groove band called The Sofas. He has toured with Ronnie Wood a number of times for his sins. Wayne plays drums with the Flowers on ‘Born’. Together with the band they have done 2 years worth of gigs. The Olympia Theatre Dublin. Leisureland Galway. The Limelight Belfast. The Opera House Cork. Connolys of Leap West Cork. Olympic Stadium Munich. Supporting the Rolling Stones in Malaya, Barcelona, and Gelsen Kirchen.
Robert Malone plays bass with Hothouse Flowers. He and Wayne play in The Sofas together. Rob gained huge experience playing with Lir. With Rob playing bass Peter is free to play Bouzouki, guitar, keyboards, or programme at will. Rob and Wayne provide a new dimension.
We had hoped to include this information on the sleeve of the disc, however, this, for reasons best known to others, did not happen. We won’t allow it to happen again.
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Having been away for a while it became clear that what we needed was some recording equipment of our own so we could experiment at our own pace without the huge expense of rehearsal rooms and demo studios. The time had come.

New ways of doing things with new angles and new interpretations. Peter and Fiachna having spent over a year on and off with Michelle Shocked, touring and recording, decided that there was no point putting any more unnecessary pressure on Liam. This was the beginning of a mending process zand a new relationship. Each had to confront the possibility of an ending before there was vision for the future. So with the studio on the go, songs were being written on a daily basis. Liam would come in and sing his version of the melody and so on.

With all the knowledge we had gained over the years we recorded a demo of the new songs and a man called Cenzo Townsend was to co-produce. Peter went to see a studio called September Sound, near Richmond, in London. It had a windowed live room looking onto the River Thames and a good size midi room for any of the sequenced stuff that had to be done.

Through obvious ups and downs the album began to take shape with Cenzo making everything sound tough and raw, an indication of the general mood. It was all mixed in Whittle Street in London by Cenzo, Dave Bascombe and helped by Max of Ocean Colour Scene fame.

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COMMENTS

HFLIVE: Peter wrote a lot for that album, then?
LIAM: Yeah, he kind of held the fort. He had these songs. We thought ‘these are good, these will do!’ ‘Born’ is mainly Peter’s album. (Speaking to HFLIVE in 2002).

PETER: The songs were written with no time-pressure involved,” says Peter. “It was a big open-ended journey that we were on, so therefore we explored various different types of sounds and we ended up with a selection of one’s which we felt worked best. We spend a lot of time working with loops and things, so you’re automatically going to go somewhere else with it. (Speaking to Hot Press in 1998).

LIAM: We resisted that through the 80’s, going for the full electric sound, because it was so commonplace with production. But now that time, that period is over, and we’ve also gained experience. We’re all a bit wiser now. I think there’s a lot more definitive work on this album than there was on the other ones, in terms of the way the whole thing is executed. The album has been brought home according to a definitive idea and vision. There’s a very strong determination going through it. Peter really held the responsibility for taking the album through the various stages, mainly because he wrote most of the songs but he also had most of the vision for how the sound could go. Fiachna and I just did our bits and circles around the situation. (Speaking to Hot Press in 1998).
FOREVER MORE

FIACHNA: A young man who wrongly believed in hope over experience. A young fool! Ha! Ha! Ha! (Speaking to HFLIVE in 2002).

POP SONG

PETER: I remember when it was just finished, it wasn’t even mixed. I was in London and I went walking around Oxford Street listening to it. It was just perfect, walking with the headphones on. There is something bright about it and the song ‘Pop Song For The Universe’ was on and I just felt that this song can burrow into somebody’s heart.” (Speaking in 1998).

LIAM (Liam messed around with weird sounds on the synth to a loop): …and then I just wrote down words really quickly, non-judgementally, a series of images and the idea of being free, getting funky with words. (Speaking to Hot Press in 1998

AT LAST

This song uses Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major.

IT’S A MAN’S MAN’S WORLD

LIAM: It’s a song I always really liked. I think we tried jamming it once, even though I didn’t have a clue of the words, during a soundcheck, and we got a great atmosphere going. Usually, if I don’t know the words, I make them up. We went to John Reynolds’ house in London and just lashed it down in a day. John actually had the record so I was able to refer to it. I was feeling really unworthy during the recording, which is probably the best way to feel. I just felt that I just couldn’t do this justice at all. I went down and listened to the original version, the performance, the dynamic and the whole gut going into the song, and then I come along with my namby-pamby version of it. But listening to it now, with distance, I feel much happier. (Speaking in 1998)

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‘Born’ was released in Europe, Australia, Japan and Canada and is available on import in the US.

Label: London Records

Release date:
UK 25th May, 1998

Catalog Number:
UK 828966.2
3984282142

Limited Edition – Label: Polygram Int’l. Reissue of 1998 release
ASIN: B00004RKIG

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Additional images and extensions

‘Born’ Audio tape

‘Born’ Promo Sampler CD:
01. Don’t Go
02. I Can See Clearly Now
03. Give It Up
04. Love Don’t Work This Way
05. Learning To Walk*
06. You Can Love Me Now*
07. Forever More*
08. Born*
(Note states: *Taken from the new album ‘Born’)