Hi,

I wrote those two lines months ago, but I've found myself thinking about them a lot recently.

Next Friday (17th July), I'll be releasing On Shoulders of Giants, the second single from my upcoming album, The Silence is Deafening.

If Animal was born from looking backwards, On Shoulders of Giants was born from looking up 👀

The song came out of countless walks and ski tours in Valle d'Aosta. I've always found that the mountains have a rather annoying habit of putting life into perspective. You spend hours trudging uphill, out of breath and wondering why on earth you're putting yourself through pain and discomfort... and then you reach the top, look around, and suddenly that thing you've been worrying about all week seems very small.

It doesn't solve anything, of course, but somehow it changes things.

I was reading Nick Cave's The Red Hand Files the other day (one of my favourite newsletters on the internet, if you've never come across it), and he was reflecting on how, when we're young, we often believe we're creating something entirely new. As we get older, we begin to realise we're building on ideas, stories and wisdom that have been around long before us. That really resonated with me because I think that's what On Shoulders of Giants is all about.

None of us starts from scratch and we're all standing on the shoulders of people that came before us.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. Teachers. Writers. Musicians. Complete strangers. The people who challenge us, inspire us, annoy us and love us 🖤

Perhaps that's why one of my favourite lines in the song isn't actually about mountains at all.