First Released On: April 20, 1998

Duration: 05:29

Variations/Remixes:

Scream Team Remix – A remix credited to both Primal Scream and Brendan Lynch operating under the Scream Team name. Massive Attack would return the favor to Primal Scream by remixing their Exterminator track in 2000. It appears on all single releases.

Mad Professor Mazaruni Vocal Mix – UK dub producer and well-known Massive Attack remixer puts his own spin on this particular remix. Included only on the promotional releases and 12″ singles, until the arrival of the Box Set Singles 90/98 where this remix was included on CD.

Mad Professor Mazaruni Instrumental Mix – Similar to the vocal mix, except that the vocals, while still present (despite being advertised as instrumental), are used more as echo effects throughout the song, typical of great part of the Mad Professor repertoire. Appears on all single releases.

Edit: A truncated version of the song for radio play. Cuts much of the beginning and end of the song. Included in promotional releases only.

Credits:

Written by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles and Elizabeth Fraser

Produced by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles and Neil Davidge

For the collected version of the song, the additional credits are:

Remastered by Mike Marsh at Exchange and Tim Young at Metropolis Mastering.

Sampled:

Jazz pianist Les McCann’s song “Sometimes I Cry” was sampled for Teardrop. It appears primarily on Les McCann’s 1972 release, Layers. He is not officially credited by Massive Attack.

Covered:

Teardrop has been covered several times by many artists, usually only as a live performance. Artists who have performed Teardrop live include Elbow, Incubus, Jamie Cullum, Jose Gonzalez and Our Lady Peace. The most recent cover is from 2007 by English singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner. There are also a large number of amateur singers who cover this song, as can be evidenced by doing a search for such covers on YouTube.

Perhaps the most notable version of Teardrop is that of Massive Attack, as Teardrop is shown in the Massive Attack song Bullet Boy.

Vocalist(s):

elizabeth fraser

Lyrics:

love, love is a verb

love is a word that makes

feathers on my breath

smooth push

shakes me makes me lighter

feathers on my breath

tear in fire

feathers on my breath

nine nights of matter

flower of black flowers

feathers on my breath

flower of black flowers

feathers on my breath

tear in fire

feathers on me

water is my eye

most faithful mirror

feathers on my breath

Tear in the fire of a confession

feathers on my breath

most faithful mirror

feathers on my breath

tear in fire

feathers on my breath

you’re stumbling in the dark

you’re stumbling in the dark

History:

Teardrop began life as a simple plucked harpsichord riff by Neil Davidige one day in April 1997. Mushroom, who was the first in the band to hear this solo riff, took an immediate liking to it and he and Neil Davidige went to work further. on it by adding dark piano chords and rhythms. The working title at the time was “No, No”. Mushroom’s number one choice (whose attachment to the song was very high) as vocalist for the song was none other than Madonna, with whom Massive Attack had previously worked with on 1995’s “I Want You”. However, both 3D and Daddy G, who had now heard the song’s opening demo by this stage, had another female vocalist in mind, Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. In the two-on-one split, Mushroom ultimately lost, though not before sending Teardrop’s backing track to Madonna, who was apparently enamored with the track and was disappointed when the rest of Massive Attack informed her that they already had a vocalist for her. the song. song. This is just one of many quips one could cite about Mushroom’s gradual dislike of Massive Attack and, of course, the band’s gradual departure in 1999.

Elizabeth Fraser wrote and sang the lyrics to Teardrop shortly after famed singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, her boyfriend at the time, died in a drowning accident. Some speculate that Teardrop’s lyrics reflected her mood at the time and could even be subtly about Jeff Buckley’s death.

Additional Information:

Teardrop was the first single released to promote Mezzanine, although it was not the first release from the album, as Risingson was released nearly a year earlier, in the summer of 1997.

The producers behind the 1999 Academy Award-winning film “American Beauty” intended to use Teardrop as the theme song to accompany the film. Massive Attack objected to the use of the song in the film after reading a brief synopsis of what the film was about. After seeing the finished film, 3D would later comment on how it was a mistake to deny “American Beauty” the use of Teardrop, when the film became the critical success of 1999 at the box office.

Live appearances:

Teardrop was first performed live at the Olympia in Dublin, Ireland on April 15, 1998. For most of the 1998/1999 tour dates, Elizabeth Fraser was unavailable due to being pregnant at the time. . However, she did make a memorable appearance at the Royal Albert Hall concert in June 1998. Her vocals on Teardrop for this tour were done by Debbie Miller. On the 2003 and 2004 tour, Liz Fraser was still not present, and now her voice was replaced by Dot Allison’s. For the 2006 tour, Elizabeth Fraser would finally return to perform live and sing her vocals for not only Teardrop but also the other Liz Fraser tracks on Mezzanine, and she proceeded to do the entire tour with Massive Attack.

Quotes:

3D on Teardrop: “It’s a moment of slight relief from some of the other moments on the album really. It was a pretty simple track musically to create and we weren’t sure what to do with it.” [ChannelV TV – June 1998]

Mushroom On Casting Liz Fraser Over Madonna As Vocalist – “Sounds Good Now” [Q Magazine – January 1999]

Daddy G on the fight with Mushroom during the making of Teardrop – “At the time, it seemed like an act of betrayal” [Q Magazine – January 1999]