Knuckle Too Far / Bruce Jam

Knuckle Too Far is track nine on the 1993 James album Laid. An early version called Bruce Jam appeared on the Deluxe and Super Deluxe Laid and Wah Wah releases in 2015 and was also called Bruise Jam on the very earliest promos of the album. Bruce Jam was named so as it was a demo version of Knuckle Too Far recorded with Bruce Mitchell of Durutti Column.

Knuckle Too Far is a song about life on the road, Tim claims to have had enough lyrics and observations to have written this track several times over.

Larry told Radio 1 about the song in September 1993 : “This song’s history is kind of the, it’s been a wallflower in its early days. It was a jam we did and recorded in a practice and we never played it again and it kind of got lost for about nine months and then one day it just surfaced again on a practice tape and someone heard it and thought that it sounded perfect as it was and it was going to go on the album as that and we found it very difficult to capture the original essence of it. One night in the studio, we decided to have another go at it and I couldn’t hear Tim and Tim couldn’t hear me in the monitors and we tried to do this rendition when we were playing off each other and as a result of not been able to hear each other, we ended up with this curious kind of miscommunication.”

“We tried to get it right on subsequent takes but when we got it right, it sounded worse than the first take so we decided to leave it how it was. I think the version that is on the album is about the second time we ever played it.”

Details

LyricsListenReleaseAvailable OnGigsGuitar Tabs

Slow down, my brother, your life is passing fast
Will you remember all these scenes that you've passed
So long, so long

Speeding past sunset, blurring from town to town
Faces I forget, hotels all look the same
Worn down the knuckle too far
Worn down the knuckle too far
So long, so long

Lost all your colours, now life's in black and white
Stills from a movie, this life's a trick of the light
Worn down the knuckle too far
Worn down the knuckle too far
Too far

City of strangers, you seem so tired to me
Don't think I'll stay here, you don't seem friendly
I'll keep on moving, searching for peace of mind
Rivers unwinding maybe I'll find it this time
So long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long

Live from my suitcase, my life's within my hands
Sleep in a strange bed, hometown's a foreign land
Worn, down, the knuckle, too far