Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space (I Can't Help Falling in Love).

"All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away."

Album: Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space [3rd album]
Recorded: London, England
Genre: Rock, Gospel, Space Rock, Neo-Psychedelia
Release: June 16th 1997
Length: 6.39
Producer: Jason Pierce
Vocalist: Jason Pierce [age 31]
Label: Dedicated Records

Official Audio


Live on NPR

Charts, Streams & Sales

UK (albums): #4
UK (albums): Certified gold in January 1998
Spotify: 3,400,000 +
YouTube Music: 850,000 +
NME Best Albums of 1997: #1
Pitchforks Best Albums of the 90's: #55
Select Magazine Best Albums of 1997: #2
Vox Magazine Best Albums of 1997: #2

Credits

Strings (Balanescu Quartet), London Community Gospel Choir

Details

• The album title, as well as the title of this song 'Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space' is taken from a passage in Jostein Garder's novel Sophie's World.
  
  Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!' But none of the people down there care
  
  Spiritualized's band leader Jason Pierce was a heavy drug user at the time he made the album. He would ofter refer to himself as J. Spaceman and probably saw himself as a psychedelic adventurer going on a journey through sound. After all, music is mathematics and mathematics is the true language of the universe.
  
  
• The original version of the song featured a choir singing sections from 'I Can't Help Falling In Love With You' by Elvis Presley. The Presley estate refused to give the band rights to the song until 2009, 12 years after it was first released. They eventually agreed on the condition that the song was re-titled 'Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space (I Can't Help Falling in Love)'. 
• The song has a consistent through line but constantly feels like it's on the edge of spilling over. Different parts of the choir sing different part of the song at the same time. So there are several overlapping voices that somehow manage to make a coherent harmony. Don McLean famously used the same technique on his track 'By the Waters of Babylon (1975)'.
• This song was featured on the soundtrack for Vanilla Sky (2001).
  
• The albums tracks were initially built using a 24 track Atari sequencer, creating a persistent spine that the live band could play on top of.
  

  

  An Atari sequencer
  

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