“Steve's been a big influence on a lot of my decisions about song writing and direction over the last few years” Barnes says. “I don't think I had fully realised the importance of a good melody until I started spending more time listening to music with him. We started passing basement demos back and forth between us, and it was his arrangement for the choir part at the end of ‘Sing to God' that made me and the other guys in my band realise we needed to dramatically up our game.”
Disorientating and captivating in equal measure during early appearances in Student Union bars and basement venues either side of the Pennines, as well as at European festivals Melt and Reeperbahn, the Leeds-based artist’s early performances took on the guise of a man vs. machine solo rock opera. Songs were constructed on stage as he writhed about on his stool like Silver Apples on uppers - the transmissions from his web of loop pedals, keyboards, pads and samplers seemingly coursing through his body’s contortions. More Stately Mansions hasn’t changed the process much, it’s just that – as he puts it – “the extra pairs of hands aren’t channels on a loopstation or sample libraries anymore, they’re owned by other people with their own ideas.”
Mostly recorded at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, with vocals put down in an isolated cottage in the middle of Wales, More Stately Mansions deals with unashamedly bold brush strokes. Songs like ‘Sing To God’s’ gossamer strings strike delicately amidst rumbling percussion and several moments of histrionic guitar malevolence that recall those aforementioned teenage influences; the title track’s layered vocals hark back to Queen in their mid-70’s pomp, while ‘Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth’ rises and falls on a series of scything post-hardcore riff acrobatics.
“I've never really been interested in stuff that just stays on a level and sits in the background,” Barnes admits. “I like music that really commands your attention and listening, and for me that's very rarely music that doesn't have a sense of width to it. I'm never happy with the idea of just doing the verse part again and then the chorus part again and cracking on with the next song. I always want to explore the ways in which things can continually build and then be knocked down.”
All of this is cut through with a climactic vocal that bores out vestiges of Jeff Buckley, or even Freddie Mercury, delivered with an overwhelming sincerity that goads its audience out of apathy and into a reaction, an expressive way of performing that Barnes has embraced since childhood. “I remember being seven years old and hearing the first few bars of 'It's a Hard Life' by Queen and being completely blown away by how Freddie Mercury's voice holding those huge, intense notes made me feel. I’ve certainly had an aversion to the trend of singers who would heavily manner their voice to sound unique or idiosyncratic too; I’ve always found it incredibly powerful when a human voice is creating the emotional drive in a piece of music.”
Balloons
Charlie Barnes Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
My love I wouldn't want you to see this.
I am losing weight so quickly I might float away
I am a balloon and I may burst with a pinprick.
Hold the cord, don't lose it.
Tie me round your wrist and I'll try to lift us both so high
That we run out of sky.
The lyrics to Charlie Barnes's song "Balloons" evoke a sense of fragility, desperation, and a deep desire to escape from something. In the first two lines, the singer instructs their love to shut their eyes and squeeze them tightly, as if they don't want their partner to witness what's about to happen. The "this" that they don't want their love to see is not explicitly stated in the song, but given the subsequent lines, it's likely that the singer is referring to their own rapid physical deterioration. They describe losing weight so quickly that they might "float away," and identify themselves as a balloon that could burst with a pinprick. These images suggest that the singer is struggling with an eating disorder or some other physical or mental illness that's causing them to feel incredibly fragile and on the verge of collapse.
Despite this fragility, the singer expresses a desire to be tied to their love and lifted up, as if the two of them could soar above the limitations of their bodies and the world around them. They urge their love to "hold the cord," to keep them tethered together even as they try to escape. The final line, "That we run out of sky," is both poignant and deeply unsettling. On one hand, it speaks to a desire to transcend the ordinary limitations of human experience, to rise up above the world and its problems. On the other hand, it suggests a kind of nihilistic despair, as if the singer believes that there's nothing left to be gained or experienced in this life, and that the only way to find true freedom is to literally escape it altogether.
Overall, the lyrics to "Balloons" offer a powerful meditation on the dangers of fragility and the desire to escape, even as they acknowledge the complexity and pain of those emotions. The song speaks to the ways in which we all struggle with our own limitations and the desire to be free from them, even as we recognize the risks and dangers of trying to transcend them.
Line by Line Meaning
Shut your eyes and squeeze them tightly
Please close your eyes and hold them tightly
My love I wouldn't want you to see this.
I don't want you to see me losing weight rapidly
I am losing weight so quickly I might float away
My body is becoming lighter and lighter, and I might start floating anytime soon
I am a balloon and I may burst with a pinprick.
Just like a balloon, I have become fragile and may break with a minor damage
Hold the cord, don't lose it.
Please hold on to the string tightly so that I don't fly away
Tie me round your wrist and I'll try to lift us both so high
Tie the string around your wrist, and I will try to take us to great heights
That we run out of sky.
I want to soar so high that there seems to be no sky above us
Writer(s): Charlie Barnes
Contributed by Colton C. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
a precious basket case
was anything said about this song? I'm so desperate to know his meaning behind it, ha ha