Song Info On Inertia Creeps
The links below will take you either to the Collector section of MASSIVEATTACK.IE, or to an external website - either amazon.com or discogs.com, where you can find out more about all the the album (s)/release (s) that this particular Massive Attack song appears on.
Inertia Creeps (Single Release), Collected, Singles 90/98, Stigmata - OST, Without Some Help (Alpha Remix)
20th April 1998
05:56
Manic Street Preachers Version - This remix by Welsh working class rockers, the Manic Street Preachers was also there first ever remix for another band. Massive Attack would also repay the favour and simultaneously remix their own song "If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next". Included on all single releases.
Alpha Mix - Melankolic labelmates and fellow Bristolians offer up their own chilled-out remix. Included on all single releases.
Back/Shecomes - This remix is in fact an Mad Professor mix done incognito, probably done as the name Mad Professor was getting to synonymous with Massive Attack remixes. Included on all single releases.
State Of Bengal Mix - This remix done by British/Asian DJ and producer Sam Zaman who emphasizes even further the middle eastern ethnic sounds contained in the regular version. Included on all single releases.
Radio Edit - A truncated version of the song for radio playback. Trims off the beginning and end of the song. Included only on the promo CD release, until the arrival of the Singles 90/98 Box Set where this edit would be included.
Written by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall and Andrew Vowles
Produced by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles and Neil Davidge
See Mezzanine info section for further credit details by clicking here.
For the Collected version of the song, additional credits are:
Remastered by Mike Marsh at the Exchange and Tim Young at Metropolis Mastering.
Samples an unknown Turkish/middle eastern song. See the History section of this page for more details.
N/A
Robert Del Naja
After taking a short break in July from the 1997 tour in Turkey, Massive Attack would return to Bristol with cassettes of Turkish music which would be the inspiration for what would eventually become Inertia Creeps. The turkish music was overheard by Massive Attack at a belly dancer club in the Turkish capital Istanbul and the very percausive nature of it piqued 3D's interest immediately. The lyrics for the song had alreay been written several months before and the turkish music backing track would serve as an appropriate musical canvas for his thougths on one of his own personnel dysfunctional relationships he had had in the past.
Inertia Creeps was the fourth and final single released from Mezzanine.
Inertia Creeps was first played live at the Olympia in Dublin, Ireland on 15th April 1998. It is also a perennial favourite of Massive Attack's being on practically every live setlist on every subsequent tour since. It's placement at shows is always towards the end, usually being the fourth or third last song played at each show.
3D on the high tempo percussion used on Inertia Creeps - "It was to drive the music forward, so that it went on and on, but the vocals are meant to pull it back a bit and it suggests this kind of stillness thats trying to settle" [Mezzanine Interview Disc - March 1998]
3D on the meaning behind Inertia Creeps - "It was just about a relationship I had been going through. It's about being in a situation but knowing you should be out of it but you're too fucking lazy or weak to leave. And you're dishonest to yourself and dishonest to the other person. You're betraying them everyday and the whole scene feels like it's closing in on you. The idea is a combination of movements propelling yourself forward and pulling yourself back at the same time. That's what the track's, about—a fucked up relationship basically and there it is." [Innerviews.org – September 1998]