Massive Attack - Safe From Harm
"But if you hurt what's mine I'll sure as hell retaliate."
Album: Blue Lines [Debut album]
Recorded: Bristol & London, England
Genre: Trip Hop
Album Release: April 8th 1991
Single Release: May 27th 1991 [3rd single]
Length: 5:19
Producer: Massive Attack and Jonny Dollar
Vocals: Shara Nelson and 3D
Label: Virgin Records
Music video
Live in Belgium from 1991
Charts
Spotify: Over 25 million
YouTube Music: Over 1.5 million
Credits
Vocals: Shara Nelson and 3D
Details
- “Working with a sample like that you can’t go wrong. Even as a loop with no vocals in it, as soon as you loop that up and listen to it you're going ‘yeah’. It just has a total groove. That also encapsulates what it was about in those days of just grabbing four bars from someone else, stealing it, looping it, that whole anarchic way of just building a song on some sort of extended beat or something, and that’s what it was about. That track in particular really does capture that spirit.” 3D - Collected EPK from March 2006
- The theme of the song, keeping a child safe from harm, was inspired by the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver (1976). 3D's performance in the music video has a strong 'he might have left the army but the army hasn't left him' vibe.
- Deborah Miller sang the Shara Nelson parts during live performances as Nelson has never toured with the band.
- One of the first four songs recorded for Blue Lines and, of those four, 3D's favourite.
- The version featured in the music video is from the single, not the album.
Artwork
