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| Jean Baptiste Mondino, 2003 |
Soul mates never die, never die
Sleeping with Ghosts is the fourth studio album by English alternative rock band Placebo, recorded from late 2002 to early 2003 and released on 24.03.2003 through record labels Virgin and Hut.
The album was produced by Jim Abbiss (The Music, UNKLE & DJ Shadow) and was their most emotionally reflective yet explosive one until this point in time.
A Special Edition version of the album was released on 22 September 2003 worldwide, featuring a diverse selection of cover versions that Placebo had recorded in previous years. This was re-released as a download-only album in 2007 under the name Covers.
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| Jean Baptiste Mondino, 2003 |
Critical reception
Sleeping with Ghosts was generally well received by critics.
"...Sleeping With Ghosts is glorious; an unrepentant emotional exorcism that cohesively hurdles between the bleak and wounded, the exuberant and defiant...." Billboard
"....No peaks, no gorges, just a steady oscillation between adequate and inspired. Sleeping with Ghosts is a remarkably level collection of guitar pop, simultaneously less glammy and less pungent than Placebo's earlier stuff....." Pichfork
"....There's some terrific and accessible stuff here [...] but the result is still an album that retreads old Placebo themes"....Mojo.
"...spikily brilliant..." Q Magazine.
The album is overflowing with modern day punk-pop anthems, dressed up with technological marvels and justifiably bleak outlooks. FilterIt's a rare rocktronic mix that actually grooves, even if the ride can be a little jittery. Rolling Stone
Sleeping With Ghosts song list
1. "Bulletproof Cupid"
2. "English Summer Rain"
3. "This Picture"
4. "Sleeping with Ghosts"
5. "The Bitter End"
6. "Something Rotten"
7. "Plasticine"
8. "Special Needs"
9. "I'll Be Yours"
10. "Second Sight"
11. "Protect Me from What I Want"
12. "Centrefolds"
No. Title Length
14. "Evalia"
15. "Drink You Pretty"
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Running Up that Hill" (originally by Kate Bush) Kate Bush
2. "Where Is My Mind?" (originally by Pixies) Black Francis
3. "Bigmouth Strikes Again" (originally by The Smiths) Johnny Marr, Morrissey
4. "Johnny and Mary" (originally by Robert Palmer) Robert Palmer
5. "20th Century Boy" (originally by T. Rex) Marc Bolan
6. "The Ballad of Melody Nelson" (originally by Serge Gainsbourg)
7. "Holocaust" (originally by Big Star) Alex Chilton
8. "I Feel You" (originally by Depeche Mode) Martin Gore
9. "Daddy Cool" (originally by Boney M.) Frank Farian, George Reyam
10. "Jackie" (originally by Sinéad O'Connor) Sinéad O'Connor
SWG - Limited Edition CD on Amazon
SWG - Special Edition Audio Cassette (rare) on Amazon
Brian Molko – vocals, guitar, keyboard, saxophone on "Something Rotten", drums on "English Summer Rain"
Steve Hewitt – drums, percussion
Stefan Olsdal – bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, piano, backing vocals
Additional personnel
Simon Breed – harmonica on "Protect Me From What I Want"
Brian Molko about Jim Abiss:
“Working with Jim Abbiss was great – he is a guy with very strong ideas and we asked him to give us a real kick up the ass. He made us listen to music in a different way and we had to give up a lot of control. There is no formula in what we do, we like to feel around in the dark and see what we like, letting the songs present themselves. I would describe this album as an emotional jigsaw puzzle.”
Which is an excellent way to describe ‘Sleeping With Ghosts’ with its deep and personal lyrics. The title track includes the epitaph-like line “soulmates never die”, which tells the story of true soulmates meeting in different lifetimes. ‘Second Sight’ is on the other end of the emotional scale, portraying the morning after a one night stand when one person wants more: “walk away to save your face / you never were a genius”.One can only imagine that there must be a plus side to airing your dirty laundry in public.
Brian Molko:“I’ve saved a lot of money on psychiatric treatment and I’m very thankful for that,” laughs Brian. “I use song writing in a cathartic way and maybe that’s why people either really love our music, shy away from it or really hate it. Some people don’t like that sort of confessional quality and prefer something more euphoric or anthemic. I think this album is quite universal but it’s so personal that it has to be.”
Surely it must be invasive having strangers (i.e. journalists) constantly grill you about your lyrics as a key to your personal life?
Brian Molko: “I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t grating sometimes, yet at the same time I’m pragmatic. I realise it’s a process you have to go through. However, it is an amazing luxury to, as an artist, express yourself through your chosen art form.
I write both from my own point of view and from others. Sometimes I create a character and place myself within it. I find that it’s a release for me and I think I have gotten better at telling stories and I think some of our videos reflect that.”
But what has driven Brian Molko to write such creative lyrics? Are there any significant moments in his life or people that have inspired him?
Brian Molko:“So much has influenced me over the years. From the second album ['Without You I’m Nothing'] onwards there was quite a lot of religious imagery because I was raised within the Church. I am happy being totally lapsed now as it has given me such a wealth of stories.
Certain people have had a large impact on me emotionally. I think it’s usually more than one person I’m writing about though. Like the song ‘Without You I’m Nothing’, it’s not necessarily about one person. I usually bring together the mistakes I’ve made with a couple of different people and use that as a catalyst for song writing.”
Placebo certainly seem a lot more chilled out now, they don’t seem to be in a rush to try everything, experience everything. Maybe, because there’s not much left for them to experience now except settling down and continuing to enjoy their music.
Brian Molko: “It’s less of a lifestyle choice and more of a physical imperative, it’s just not possible to do that anymore. Put it this way: if you eat too many curries one week you don’t want to eat curry for a month – too much of a good thing, I suppose. You realise that you’re not immortal and that you have responsibilities. It’s about partying when you deserve to – rewarding yourself.”
It would appear that a more mature Placebo has emerged from the gritty leftovers of the 90s.‘Sleeping With Ghosts’ serves to represent that, justifying everything Brian has said. Brian, himself, has proved to be an honest and thoughtful person, thinking each question I ask over thoroughly to give me the best answer he can, often exploring himself through the question.
So, Brian and the rest of the band, the hard work done, must be ready to sit back and watch the album do its thing.
Brian Molko: “It’s the limbo period between finishing the album and it coming out that means you cannot rest yet. Once you get your first chart positions out of the way you can relax.”
With this in mind, Brian can now go and relax with a well earned drink, safe in the knowledge that Placebo have achieved No. 12 in the UK Top 40 and, bizarrely, No.1 in the Portuguese charts, with their first single from the new album, ‘The Bitter End’.
During Sleeping With Ghosts' recording, we listened Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age over and over… It has much run into Bulletproof Cupid. We had never composed instrumental before, but then I didn't manage to stick words on this track: it was sufficient unto itself because it was very powerful. It acts as a premeditated lure: when you listen to the first notes, you expect the voice and it never comes. At the end, it becomes a little confusing and you have no idea what may reserve the rest of the album.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
-Why choose to open this album with an instrumental track? Is it to initiate a transition from your previous records and "Sleeping With Ghost"?
Brian Molko: No. It's a music slap. I want to wake up the audience. I tried to write lyrics on this track, but I couldn't. It didn't come out, it didn't sound natural. So it was easier to keep this track as an instrumental. Then the difficulty has been to choose where integrate this track. It could only work at the beginning. If we had put it elsewhere, it would have interrupted the album flow. But what I find interesting as an auditor is that on the one hand you take a slap and in addition, you wait for the lyrics all along the track. But they don't come. It's a matter of intrigue. You are disoriented and you know that you will have to listen at least five or six songs to understand the record. This concept is interesting.
Brian Molko, Guitar Part : April 2003
A sort of mantra which speaks about leaving… My lover leaves me to travel, I watch the planes in the sky, I tell myself she is perhaps into one of them. I'm still in London, it's summertime, it's raining, it's boring and I miss her terribly.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
Someone walking away from a self-destructive relationship. It recalls James Dean’s fetish of having cigarettes stubbed out on his chest during sex, only here they’re being stubbed out on mine.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
This Picture was originally a piano ballad, a REM track style. We made rock out of it, a rock song. It's especially about destructive relationships.
Brian Molko, M6 Music, March 2004
I wanted to explore the relationship between the present and memory. All of us sleep with ghosts from the past, we carry them with us and they have a permanent effect on our daily lives. These ghosts embody all the people we loved, who have been important in our lives, who have changed us. While a lot of people spend their lives in therapy to manage them, I have the chance to carry them through music.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : Mach-April 2003
The back-to-basics rock song, written in two days. Two people trying to come out of a relationship with the least scars. Very fuck you.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
The Bitter End was written and recorded in two days, when we finished the album. The Bitter End is about couples who are breaking up, the anger that take hold of them at this time, the desire that arises from this injury.
Brian Molko, M6 Music, March 2004
In Something Rotten, there is talk of sexual abuse ..."
Not sexual abuse, it's an abstract song. Anyway, I never sit on precepts such as deciding in advance the theme to-be of a song. This track has been composed in a very instinctive way starting on a dub-reggae jam. I went to the microphone without text, and I threw the first words that came to my mind. Once the song finished, I wondered what it was about. There is a sinister atmosphere in the song.
It reminded me of an old song of Fine Young Cannibals: Johnny come home ... I was sure I would be questionned about this track ... It makes me think of a young person who needs to leave his family for quite extremes reasons. Afterwards, you are free to interpret it a hundred ways. I think once again it is important to let the listener free to make its own benchmarks.
Brian Molko, Guitar Part n°109, April 2003
Magazines compel us to look like Kate Moss, but I think it's not because people are plastically perfect or à la mode that they are safe. Despite the fact I wear make-up and seem to be self-confident it has not prevented me from having problems with drugs or alcohol… Plasticine is probably the most representative song of our collaboration with the producer Jim Abbiss (UNKLE, DJ Shadow, Björk). He asked us to do five versions of it in the studio and it was only at the fifth he concluded: "Come on, guys, that's OK, we do as you want, we take the first one."
It's been very difficult to work with him because he is very demanding. We recorded the album in four months, in London, in a very spontaneous way. We gained a lot with working with Jim, in the sense that he would never let us make easy things and constantly incited us to the difficulty. I think he really balanced us and that, thanks to him, we ourselves were surprised by the result. We thought Sleeping With Ghosts would be more electronic and in fact, no. It's funny to be Kraftwerk for the weekend but no more. I am very proud that finally this record is rock…
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
The tale of a celebrity has-been told from a wheelchair. Someone reminiscing how the shoe is on the other foot and worrying that they’ll be written out of their ex’s biography.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
A disturbing track. Someone who wants to engulf another person completely in the name of love. Something I’ve been on the receiving end of and it’s scary.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
A one-night-stand song saying walk away for your own self-respect.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
For me, it's the study of the pathological need to copulate that people have, the search for a meaning in copulation. As if single people or monogamous were extraterrestrials. As if we are a whole only when being two. The song refers to the fact that a relationship destroyed me, but I can't help myself to look for another one ... Why do I always bring myself back to that?
Brian Molko, Rock & Folk n°4. 28 April 2003
"Protège-Moi" is a single by the band Placebo, which was released in France only in 2003. The song is a French lenguage version of "Protect Me from What I Want". The chorus remains in English, although the French title is sung in the background. The song can also be found as an additional track on the two disc edition of Placebo's fourth album, Sleeping with Ghosts. It was also released in 2004, on Placebo's Greates Hits album Once More with Feeling: Singles 1996-2004. It has been translated to French by Virginie Despentes.
On all our albums, there are several ballads. With Stefan and Steve, were were moderately interested in falling into the cliché "Placebo, it's sad." So we tell ourselves we would do only one, just to please this part of our audience. This is a track written by Stefan six years ago at the piano. It's about the role reversal in relationships, the lost power, a very desperate form of love, very unclean, impossible.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
Sources: Placebo World. Wikipedia, Placebo Russia, Freewebs.com/Placeboworld, XS OF Placebo,Suckerlove.
A Specia Thank You too: Diana. E.T.F. & Angelika Mjj for their helping hands.
Documentation & Design: SusanneCk
We are Placebo Anyway on Facebook
Japanese edition bonus tracks
No. Title Length
14. "Evalia"
15. "Drink You Pretty"
Special Edition bonus disc
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Running Up that Hill" (originally by Kate Bush) Kate Bush
2. "Where Is My Mind?" (originally by Pixies) Black Francis
3. "Bigmouth Strikes Again" (originally by The Smiths) Johnny Marr, Morrissey
4. "Johnny and Mary" (originally by Robert Palmer) Robert Palmer
5. "20th Century Boy" (originally by T. Rex) Marc Bolan
6. "The Ballad of Melody Nelson" (originally by Serge Gainsbourg)
7. "Holocaust" (originally by Big Star) Alex Chilton
8. "I Feel You" (originally by Depeche Mode) Martin Gore
9. "Daddy Cool" (originally by Boney M.) Frank Farian, George Reyam
10. "Jackie" (originally by Sinéad O'Connor) Sinéad O'Connor
Sleeping With Ghosts Singles
1. Bitter End 10.03.2003
2. This Picture 16.06.2003
3. Special Needs 15.09.2003
4. Progege - Moi 08.04.2004
Special Editions
SWG - Audio CD on AmazonSWG - Limited Edition CD on Amazon
SWG - Special Edition Audio Cassette (rare) on Amazon
Placebo formation on Sleeping With Ghosts
Steve Hewitt – drums, percussion
Stefan Olsdal – bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, piano, backing vocals
Additional personnel
Simon Breed – harmonica on "Protect Me From What I Want"
Interview with Brian Molko about Sleeping With Ghosts
Drowned in Sound "Interview with Brian Molko", 25.0.2003
Brian Molko about Jim Abiss:
“Working with Jim Abbiss was great – he is a guy with very strong ideas and we asked him to give us a real kick up the ass. He made us listen to music in a different way and we had to give up a lot of control. There is no formula in what we do, we like to feel around in the dark and see what we like, letting the songs present themselves. I would describe this album as an emotional jigsaw puzzle.”
Which is an excellent way to describe ‘Sleeping With Ghosts’ with its deep and personal lyrics. The title track includes the epitaph-like line “soulmates never die”, which tells the story of true soulmates meeting in different lifetimes. ‘Second Sight’ is on the other end of the emotional scale, portraying the morning after a one night stand when one person wants more: “walk away to save your face / you never were a genius”.One can only imagine that there must be a plus side to airing your dirty laundry in public.
Brian Molko:“I’ve saved a lot of money on psychiatric treatment and I’m very thankful for that,” laughs Brian. “I use song writing in a cathartic way and maybe that’s why people either really love our music, shy away from it or really hate it. Some people don’t like that sort of confessional quality and prefer something more euphoric or anthemic. I think this album is quite universal but it’s so personal that it has to be.”
Surely it must be invasive having strangers (i.e. journalists) constantly grill you about your lyrics as a key to your personal life?
Brian Molko: “I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t grating sometimes, yet at the same time I’m pragmatic. I realise it’s a process you have to go through. However, it is an amazing luxury to, as an artist, express yourself through your chosen art form.
 |
| Jeffrey Delannoy, 10.08.2003 |
I write both from my own point of view and from others. Sometimes I create a character and place myself within it. I find that it’s a release for me and I think I have gotten better at telling stories and I think some of our videos reflect that.”
But what has driven Brian Molko to write such creative lyrics? Are there any significant moments in his life or people that have inspired him?
Brian Molko:“So much has influenced me over the years. From the second album ['Without You I’m Nothing'] onwards there was quite a lot of religious imagery because I was raised within the Church. I am happy being totally lapsed now as it has given me such a wealth of stories.
Certain people have had a large impact on me emotionally. I think it’s usually more than one person I’m writing about though. Like the song ‘Without You I’m Nothing’, it’s not necessarily about one person. I usually bring together the mistakes I’ve made with a couple of different people and use that as a catalyst for song writing.”
 |
| Oliver Bernardt, 10.08.2003 |
Placebo certainly seem a lot more chilled out now, they don’t seem to be in a rush to try everything, experience everything. Maybe, because there’s not much left for them to experience now except settling down and continuing to enjoy their music.
Brian Molko: “It’s less of a lifestyle choice and more of a physical imperative, it’s just not possible to do that anymore. Put it this way: if you eat too many curries one week you don’t want to eat curry for a month – too much of a good thing, I suppose. You realise that you’re not immortal and that you have responsibilities. It’s about partying when you deserve to – rewarding yourself.”
 |
| John Rogers, MTV EMA, november 18th |
It would appear that a more mature Placebo has emerged from the gritty leftovers of the 90s.‘Sleeping With Ghosts’ serves to represent that, justifying everything Brian has said. Brian, himself, has proved to be an honest and thoughtful person, thinking each question I ask over thoroughly to give me the best answer he can, often exploring himself through the question.
So, Brian and the rest of the band, the hard work done, must be ready to sit back and watch the album do its thing.
Brian Molko: “It’s the limbo period between finishing the album and it coming out that means you cannot rest yet. Once you get your first chart positions out of the way you can relax.”
With this in mind, Brian can now go and relax with a well earned drink, safe in the knowledge that Placebo have achieved No. 12 in the UK Top 40 and, bizarrely, No.1 in the Portuguese charts, with their first single from the new album, ‘The Bitter End’.
 |
| Alex Vanhee, Brussel, september 16th |
SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS - Songs meanings by Brian Molko
Videos by Angelika Mjj
Bulletproof Cupid
During Sleeping With Ghosts' recording, we listened Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age over and over… It has much run into Bulletproof Cupid. We had never composed instrumental before, but then I didn't manage to stick words on this track: it was sufficient unto itself because it was very powerful. It acts as a premeditated lure: when you listen to the first notes, you expect the voice and it never comes. At the end, it becomes a little confusing and you have no idea what may reserve the rest of the album.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
-Why choose to open this album with an instrumental track? Is it to initiate a transition from your previous records and "Sleeping With Ghost"?
Brian Molko: No. It's a music slap. I want to wake up the audience. I tried to write lyrics on this track, but I couldn't. It didn't come out, it didn't sound natural. So it was easier to keep this track as an instrumental. Then the difficulty has been to choose where integrate this track. It could only work at the beginning. If we had put it elsewhere, it would have interrupted the album flow. But what I find interesting as an auditor is that on the one hand you take a slap and in addition, you wait for the lyrics all along the track. But they don't come. It's a matter of intrigue. You are disoriented and you know that you will have to listen at least five or six songs to understand the record. This concept is interesting.
Brian Molko, Guitar Part : April 2003
English Summer Rain
A sort of mantra which speaks about leaving… My lover leaves me to travel, I watch the planes in the sky, I tell myself she is perhaps into one of them. I'm still in London, it's summertime, it's raining, it's boring and I miss her terribly.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
This Picture
Someone walking away from a self-destructive relationship. It recalls James Dean’s fetish of having cigarettes stubbed out on his chest during sex, only here they’re being stubbed out on mine.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
This Picture was originally a piano ballad, a REM track style. We made rock out of it, a rock song. It's especially about destructive relationships.
Brian Molko, M6 Music, March 2004
Sleeping Whith Ghosts
I wanted to explore the relationship between the present and memory. All of us sleep with ghosts from the past, we carry them with us and they have a permanent effect on our daily lives. These ghosts embody all the people we loved, who have been important in our lives, who have changed us. While a lot of people spend their lives in therapy to manage them, I have the chance to carry them through music.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : Mach-April 2003
The Bitter End
The back-to-basics rock song, written in two days. Two people trying to come out of a relationship with the least scars. Very fuck you.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
 |
| Sebastien Dolidon |
The Bitter End was written and recorded in two days, when we finished the album. The Bitter End is about couples who are breaking up, the anger that take hold of them at this time, the desire that arises from this injury.
Brian Molko, M6 Music, March 2004
Something Rotten
In Something Rotten, there is talk of sexual abuse ..."
Not sexual abuse, it's an abstract song. Anyway, I never sit on precepts such as deciding in advance the theme to-be of a song. This track has been composed in a very instinctive way starting on a dub-reggae jam. I went to the microphone without text, and I threw the first words that came to my mind. Once the song finished, I wondered what it was about. There is a sinister atmosphere in the song.
It reminded me of an old song of Fine Young Cannibals: Johnny come home ... I was sure I would be questionned about this track ... It makes me think of a young person who needs to leave his family for quite extremes reasons. Afterwards, you are free to interpret it a hundred ways. I think once again it is important to let the listener free to make its own benchmarks.
Brian Molko, Guitar Part n°109, April 2003
Plasticine
Magazines compel us to look like Kate Moss, but I think it's not because people are plastically perfect or à la mode that they are safe. Despite the fact I wear make-up and seem to be self-confident it has not prevented me from having problems with drugs or alcohol… Plasticine is probably the most representative song of our collaboration with the producer Jim Abbiss (UNKLE, DJ Shadow, Björk). He asked us to do five versions of it in the studio and it was only at the fifth he concluded: "Come on, guys, that's OK, we do as you want, we take the first one."
It's been very difficult to work with him because he is very demanding. We recorded the album in four months, in London, in a very spontaneous way. We gained a lot with working with Jim, in the sense that he would never let us make easy things and constantly incited us to the difficulty. I think he really balanced us and that, thanks to him, we ourselves were surprised by the result. We thought Sleeping With Ghosts would be more electronic and in fact, no. It's funny to be Kraftwerk for the weekend but no more. I am very proud that finally this record is rock…
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
Special Needs
The tale of a celebrity has-been told from a wheelchair. Someone reminiscing how the shoe is on the other foot and worrying that they’ll be written out of their ex’s biography.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
I'll Be Yours
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
Second Sight
A one-night-stand song saying walk away for your own self-respect.
Brian Molko, interview, Rock Sound, April 2003
Protect Me From What I Want
For me, it's the study of the pathological need to copulate that people have, the search for a meaning in copulation. As if single people or monogamous were extraterrestrials. As if we are a whole only when being two. The song refers to the fact that a relationship destroyed me, but I can't help myself to look for another one ... Why do I always bring myself back to that?
Brian Molko, Rock & Folk n°4. 28 April 2003
"Protège-Moi" is a single by the band Placebo, which was released in France only in 2003. The song is a French lenguage version of "Protect Me from What I Want". The chorus remains in English, although the French title is sung in the background. The song can also be found as an additional track on the two disc edition of Placebo's fourth album, Sleeping with Ghosts. It was also released in 2004, on Placebo's Greates Hits album Once More with Feeling: Singles 1996-2004. It has been translated to French by Virginie Despentes.
Centrefolds
On all our albums, there are several ballads. With Stefan and Steve, were were moderately interested in falling into the cliché "Placebo, it's sad." So we tell ourselves we would do only one, just to please this part of our audience. This is a track written by Stefan six years ago at the piano. It's about the role reversal in relationships, the lost power, a very desperate form of love, very unclean, impossible.
Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles N°382 : March-April 2003
 |
| Sebastien Dolidon |
Sources: Placebo World. Wikipedia, Placebo Russia, Freewebs.com/Placeboworld, XS OF Placebo,Suckerlove.
A Specia Thank You too: Diana. E.T.F. & Angelika Mjj for their helping hands.
Documentation & Design: SusanneCk
We are Placebo Anyway on Facebook
