Only Love Can Break Your Heart (4:29)

Written by Neil Young
Produced by Saint Etienne

Recorded January 1990
Released May 1990 on Only Love Can Break Your Heart. Features on the debut album Foxbase Alpha.

Notes Vocals by Moira Lambert of cult indie band Faith Over Reason. She now records as a solo artist under the name, Moira.

“The original recording was done in January 1990 at my Mum’s place in Pollards Hill. They’d said they were going to start a group and make records in the 90’s - such a stereotypically Saint Etienne thing to say. And so in January 1990 there they were. As far as I was concerned they were making a demo! Two songs in an afternoon. We didn’t really have much time to think about it. I remember patiently trying to explain how it would never work. It’s a 3/4 song, they wanted to do it in 4/4 - I didn’t see it.” (engineer Ian Catt, 2009).

“The idea was just to do covers and use rotating vocalists. We recorded ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ and ‘Kiss and Make Up’ (later re-recorded with Donna Savage and released on the 2CD version of Foxbase Beta) on the same day. The idea was just to see if we could do something that worked.” (Pete Wiggs, 2009).

“At the end we did ‘Only Love’ really quickly. Literally punching things in and out. Mixing it live.” (Bob Stanley, 2009).