Elbow - Adriana Again
Today marks 25 years since the release of ‘Asleep in the Back’.

Originally released on 7th May 2001, elbow’s debut album introduced tracks including ‘Red’, ‘Newborn’, ‘Powder Blue’ and ‘Scattered Black and Whites’, and was later shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize.

To mark the anniversary, a selection of archive videos, live footage and clips from the long out-of-print ‘Asleep in the Back’ film are now being made available on the band’s official YouTube channel for the first time.

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Elbow

scattered black & whites (live from the astoria 2001)

Been climbing trees I’ve skinned my knees
My hands are black the sun is going down
She scruffs my hair in the kitchen steam
She’s listening to the dream I weaved today
Crosswords through the bathroom door
While someone sings the theme-tune to the news
And my sister buzzes through the room leaving perfume in the air
And that’s what triggered this.

I come back here from time to time
I shelter here some days.

A high-back chair. He sits and stares
A thousand yards and whistles
Marching-band (Boom-ching)
Kneeling by and speaking up
He reaches out and I take a
Massive hand.

Disjointed tales
That flit between short trousers
And a full dress uniform
And he talks of people ten years
Gone like I’ve known them all my life
Like scattered black ‘n’ whites