Sing It Back

The Story Behind The Song

Born in Arklow, Co, Wicklow in 1973, Róisín Murphy lived in Ireland until she was 12, when her family moved to Manchester. Though her family eventually returned to Ireland, Murphy elected to stay in England and developed an adolescent love of alternative bands such as The Jesus And Mary Chain, Sonic Youth and Pixies. A music nut, she went on to nurture a love of club music, and was inspired by the Vivienne Westwood designs she saw at the influential London club, Trash.

Founded by pioneering DJ Erol Alkan, Trash was massively influential in the crossover between dance and rock, hosting early performances from bands such as Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Bloc Party and Klaxons. That dance-punk aesthetic was detectable in the early albums from Moloko, who were named for the narcotic-infused milk drink in A Clockwork Orange.

Moloko’s debut Do You Like My Tight Sweater was a minor success, spawning the single ‘Fun For Me’, which was a Top 40 hit in the UK and reached No.4 in the US Hot Dance Club Play chart. Ultimately the album would go silver in the UK, but it was the signs of acceptance in the US that were perhaps most important. The follow-up, I Am Not A Doctor charted in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, but initially it lacked a hit single, with its best shot ‘Sing It Back’ peaking at No.45.

“I went to New York in 1996 or ’97 and I'd go quite regularly to Body & Soul, just by myself,”  Róisín Murphy told i-D magazine. “I was staying with a girl who was working at Tommy Boy Records at the time. I felt like I'd got to the source of it, to a degree. Body & Soul was very church-y and it was on a Sunday. It was totally devotional. François K would play a lot of vocal tracks and the whole audience seemed to know all the words, so he'd turn down the music and everyone would sing it back to him. That's where I came up with the idea for a club track with the lyric 'Sing it back' as the chorus.

“So I came back to Sheffield buzzing – and the first song we wrote for I Am Not a Doctor was ‘Sing It Back’ and it was over a house beat. Then we continued making the album, and we got into jungle, and all these different styles. It’s a submissive song, you know. It’s about playing the role of the submissive and submission in general. At the end Mark [Brydon, producer] felt like it didn’t fit on the record, because we hadn’t gone ahead and made lots of house music – we’d made lots of bonkers music instead. So he changed it. It was always a disappointment if I'm being honest, because it never developed into the song I thought it could be.”

Róisín in particular was convinced that the song was good enough to crack it in a bigger way. But what might the secret ingredient be? That, as ever, was the $64,000 question. Club hits are a law unto themselves and may need a bit of explaining. Throughout the ’90s, there had been a strong trend in music for songs becoming hits on the back of what were termed dance remixes – versions mixed by dance producers or club DJs that were aimed strictly at getting a club crowd excited and onto the floor, immersing themselves in the music. A notable example was New York producer Todd Terry’s reworking of Everything But The Girl’s ‘Missing’, which became a major hit throughout Europe in 1996.

“At the end of the album campaign,” Róisín recalled, “I went to the record company and said ‘Please get a remix done of 'Sing It Back' and put it out as a single, because I think it might work’.” 

It was Todd Terry to whom Moloko's label, Echo, turned to do the ‘Sing It Back’ remix. However, the group were unhappy with Terry’s overhaul. They listened to a version, hammered into shape gratis by German DJ Boris Dlugosch. The German groove mechanic gave the track a sublime, funky house feel, with a further nod to ‘70s disco. He also foregrounded Murphy’s inspired vocals, delivered in a seductive soul style. 

“We put it on and I immediately knew it was a hit,” Róisín said. “It had hit written all over it. I immediately envisioned me singing it on Top of the Pops, I swear. So then I rang the label. This was all me pushing for this, by the way. Just this young bird from Sheffield that people don't necessarily listen to. Anyway, I was like ‘We've got the re-mix, it’s going to be a hit’. The record company was like, ‘No, we've got to do the Todd Terry version because we paid a fortune for it’. I was like ‘Just because it was free, doesn't mean you should ignore it’. They just wouldn’t listen and I had arguments with them where I was literally lying on the ground crying, going ‘Please!’. I was almost pulling the carpet up. They weren’t having it and it was a fight that I lost.

“They put the Todd Terry remix out and it entered in the lower reaches of the Top 40. So that was a disappointment, because – back then – you got your best shot in the charts in the first week. Then the following Friday, I was listening to Pete Tong and loads of people were requesting the Boris Dlugosch remix from the Miami Music conference, saying it was the sound of the festival blah blah blah. So I rang the head of our label and was like ‘I told you’. So I told him to delete the Todd Terry remix and put this one out instead – and that’s exactly what they did.”

Over the irresistible groove, the singer delivered a classic story of a doomed love affair, which tapped into a feeling often found in pop: a celebration of one’s own foibles. “Can I control this empty delusion,” sings Murphy at one point, “lost in the fire below?” But later she notes, “When you come back/ I’ll be as you want me.”

The coup de grace, meanwhile, was the simple, irresistible chorus of “Sing it back/ Sing it back to me.” Aside from her gifts as a singer and songwriter, Murphy’s style and charisma gave her considerable star quality, all of which were on display in the song’s video.