In Australia, I was reading Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, and fell in love with that whole West Texas narrative and the soul-searching in that environment. I weaved in this narrative where it’s the other side of the story from ‘Hey Joe’, the Jimi Hendrix song. Instead of Joe going to shoot his old lady, the old lady is saying, ‘I’m tired of your shit. I’m tired of your temper. I’m tired of this domestic hell that I live in.’ The chorus, ‘The smell of burning cattle hangs on the westerly,’ that’s based on an experience I had. My dad chose a great time to travel up to Scotland at the turn of the century when the foot-and-mouth [outbreak] was happening. We were going through Northumbria and there were lines and lines of dead cattle having been burnt. The smell was horrific.

— Joe Newman via Apple Music

Originally the guitar part in this song was written for the bass. It formed the basis of an early song of ours called ‘Robber from the 70s’. This song has never seen the light of day. We don’t think there is even a demo of it.

— alt-J, via the song’s Spotify storyline