Sometimes
Can’t sleep in the city, your far away
Cigarettes keep you skinny
And your mind of the rain
Sometimes, Sometimes
Sometimes, Sometimes
Feelings are distant, I know guilt by name
It was the hardest thing, watching you slip away
Sometimes, Sometimes
Sometimes, Sometimes
Sometimes it happens feelings die
Whole years are lost in the blink of an eye
We once had it all but events conspired
Sometimes
Good morning my sweet thing your safe in my hands
I am no saint but I understand
Sometimes, Sometimes
Sometimes, Sometimes
Sometimes it happens feelings die
Whole years are lost in the blink of an eye
We once had it all but events conspired
Sometimes
Now that its all over, it is through
It gets me every time I think of you
Sometimes it happens feelings die
Sometimes
I miss your warm skin beside me at night
I miss your flesh in the dawn light
Sometimes, Sometimes
Sometimes, Sometimes
Sometimes it happens feelings die
Whole years are lost in the blink of an eye
We once had it all but events conspired
Sometimes
Saturn’s decline in my star sign
Seasonal adjustments, stars realign
Sometimes it happens feelings die
Sometimes, sometimes
Song Notes
Pure poetic brilliance, this was a hot favourite for the second single from the album but the band decided to release a heavier track instead. The track was later released as the third single from the album and helped shift thousands of copies of Free All Angels. Ever constant in the bands live set.
Tim: I started that song in a hotel in Bangkok on the Nu-Clear Sounds tour. I’d just broken up with my girlfriend and was really depressed. It started out as a really sad slow song, probably half the speed it ended up. Anyway there was something pretty in the melody and chords and I had the repetitive “Sometimes” hook in the verse. Later on when I wasn’t feeling so bad about things, I re-approached the song and realised it would work nicely faster. I remember the intro coming together when we were rehearsing at the Fortress studios in London. In fact two of my favourite Ash intros are on Free All Angels; “Burn Baby Burn” and “Sometimes”. I spent a long time writing lyrics for the whole album and “Sometimes” is about when things outside your control break up a relationship. With me it was a time when I didn’t have much control of my life, we were on tour or in the studio all the time for a few years and it was tough to keep up a relationship which was long distance most of the time.
Mark: “Sometimes” was a bit more rock and in the vein of “Goldfinger” production-wise before Owen and Alan Moulder thought it would be a good idea to make it sound a bit more ’jangly’ and like The Smiths”.
Go Home Productions released a mash-up remix of the track and the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” in 2001 called “Sometimes I Want You Back”.