Elbow - Grounds For Divorce

2 months ago
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Grounds for Divorce is the first single from Elbow's fourth studio album The Seldom Seen Kid.
The song opens with the line:

I've been working on a cocktail, called grounds for divorce

Uncut magazine said it was "surely one of the best opening lines of any pop song in years" and NME compared it to something James Bond might say "this is kind of glorious one-liner he’d mutter before taking the bad guys down and then smooching a lofty Eastern European countess." The lyrics tell a story of excessive drinking in the local pub, ("There's a hole in my neighborhood / Down which of late I cannot help but fall") and an unhappy relationship ("And I’d bring you further roses, but it does you no good"). The word whoa is extended as "woah-oh-oh-oh" and repeated throughout the track.

Paste magazine writes: "The track explodes with their heaviest guitar line to date" and Digital Spy described the song as "Perhaps the loudest and most 'rocking' track in Elbow's career, the combination of infectious riffing and emotional wrangling makes this a call-to-arms that's both joyous and cathartic."
The music video was directed by Dan Sully.

Lyrics:
Mondays is for drinking to the seldom seen kid

I've been working on a cocktail called Grounds For Divorce, whoa
Polishing a compass that I hold in my sleep, whoa
Doubt comes in on sticks, but then he kicks like a horse, whoa
There's a Chinese cigarette case and the rest you can keep

And the rest you can keep
And the rest you can keep

There's a hole in my neighbourhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall
There's a hole in my neighbourhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall

Mondays is for drinking to the seldom seen kid
(Ooh, ooh)

There's this whispering of jokers doing "Flesh by the Pound"
To a chorus of supposes from the little town whores
There'll be twisted karaoke at the Aniseed Lounge
And I'd bring you further roses but it does you no good

And it does me no good
And it does you no good

There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall
There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall
There's a hole in my neighborhood
Down which of late I cannot help but fall

Someday we'll be drinking with the seldom seen kid
(Ooh, ooh)

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