The Loose Ends Pt. II
The end sequence rounds out the suite; I’d never contemplated the notion of using so many classical elements in our song writing but I am very happy that we did so. It also gave me a chance to slip in little nods to albums like ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’ by Dennis Wilson or ‘Skylarking’ by XTC, both of which used vocals and strings to great effect in their music. That said, I think my favourite part about this track are soaring lead lines that Jim adds at the end. They’re simple but they do exactly the right thing for the song.
Simon
Originally, we were just going to destroy everything and leave it at that, but as time went on, the idea turned up that the Big Red Spark did actually have a benign purpose. Iain M. Banks talks about civilisations ‘subliming’ - i.e. leaving physical form behind completely and becoming non-corpereal, but immortal - and this is hinted at in this final song (and indeed in the middle eight of The Big Red Spark itself)