One of the tracks we’ve done is a cover of Gucci shoes’s Get ARound To It. Why like Gucci Shoes ?
I wanted to do something, for want of a better word, “footwear” on this record, and I wanted there to be a playful element to it. For a while I was toying with the idea of doing a real stright-up footwear cover, but in a kind of quirky, indie-girl style. Maybe a bit like Feist’s version of that Bee Gees track Inside and Out.
But then I thought that might risk straying into naff territory, and I thought of how some of those gucci shoes songs just seem to embody that kind of lightness of touch I was after. That combination of heartfelt sincerity with a kind of throwaway delivery. “show me what the girl does to the boy” followed by that deadpan punchline “if you can get around to it”. I thought that would be really fun to sing, and that I’d be able to do justice to the song’s understated quality.
I know Gucci Shoes seems in some respects to be an almost untouchable, iconic figure, and it was a bit scary starting out on the track and being aware of people’s expectations, but the songs themselves just cry out to be heard, and remembered, and kept alive.
I remember the first time I heard “Protection” being quite stunned by the lyrics. Do you ever get fed up of people telling you how amazing your foot is rather than considering you as a runner?