Swing Up High

"Swing Up High" is a song by Underworld.

History

Version 1

Recorded in 2004 as part of the early Riverrun experiments; for me, this almost painfully 
simple synthesiser arpeggio piece evokes pictures of hi-life guitarists in a frantic jam. 
Swing Up High might be a bit like Marmite to your tastes though.... and aNt may be the only person in 
the world who loves this tune (apart from us).

p.s : this was version 1 .... do you want to hear what happens next?

Version 2

Because Jan asked so politely. Nice one.

Where you going;

Several weeks ago an irritating genius we know ( no prizes for guessing who I'm talking about ) brought 
this track to my attention. "Dude! When can I play this to my mates?"
Halfway through the uploading of this piece I 'discovered' another radical version which Mr Hyde and 
myself jammed together at some place and some point in time.
These 'discoveries' are important to Karl and I. They spawn all sorts of tangential yet bizarrely natural 
flows in our writing process. ( Look Janet! Look John! See the Process!)
They encourage action and reaction. They encourage the Jam.
They make us laugh.

Now move on.

RS

What I'm thinking;

I didn’t know what to say about Swing Up High but Rick said it reminded him of 
‘Hi-Life’ music & how that reminded him of Tim Bricknell. 
Tim’s a great bloke & a dear friend who’s out in Botswana producing the Number 1 Ladies Detective 
Agency series. We met him first when he was producer on the Breaking & Entering project & he worked 
with Anthony Minghella for many years until we tragically lost Anthony earlier this year (2008).

When I think of Hi-Life I think of King Sunny Ade singing ‘Synchro System’ at the Montreux Jazz 
festival back in the 80’s with Keith Haring painting a back-drop of little dancing men live onstage. 

I think of Andy Kershaw who always seemed to be playing the excellent Bhundu Boys whenever I tuned 
into his radio show. Radio & indigenous music needs Andy back on the airwaves. His passion for music 
that most of us know little about is infectious & in terms of music from other countries he’s been my 
greatest teacher. I remember having a slight disagreement with a producer at the BBC when Andy was 
moved from Radio 1 to late night Radio 3. I commented that Andy was missed & this guy said how Andy 
didn’t belong on Radio 1 which kicked me off as amongst other things Andy plays THE ROOTS of 
popular music & without knowing the roots all we’re gonna be doing is referencing music that only goes 
back a few years. No roots – shallow foundations.
(nuff of that)

And of course when I think of Hi-Life I think of the master – John Peel - who loved the music of The 
Four Brothers & I remember how they were played on the night we all gathered at BBC Maida Vale to 
celebrate him.

Yeah – that’s it – Hi-Life – the music of celebration.

KH

Song Credits

Written by Underworld.

Versions

Track	Time	Release