The Coral – When All The Birds Have Flown (from the ‘Mysteries & Rarities’ disc of the Singles Collection released in September 2008)

“This was an outtake from Roots & Echoes. Id written it quite early on during the album sessions and I really wish wed put it on the album to be honest and Im quite gutted that we didnt. It was written as this weird kind of Leonard Cohen song, we got it together quickly, it sounded good in the batch of first tunes for the LP and we did a demo and it sounded good, we recorded it with Ian Broudie and then with [producer] Craig [Silvey], which is the version on this CD. We just over listened to it and because of that it never made the album and its better than some of the songs on it. I wanted it to be a single but it didnt get a great reaction (laughs). The story is like Eleanor Rigby. Its about this woman in Liverpool who fed the pigeons and shed talk to herself and Id think is she there or am I the only one who sees her. The image stuck in my head.” – James Skelly, The Coral

Lyrics:

Jane, she knows she has to stay
Face the world all alone
The square, it is empty today
All the birds, they have flown

They’ve gone south for the winter
She’s got nowhere to go
Talks but nobody hears her
When all the birds have flown

Birds full of bread and papers
Lonely, lost and unknown
Now there’s nothing left for her
All the birds, they have flown

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