“The Saddest Thing I Know” by Birds of Tokyo

"The Saddest Thing I Know" kicked off Birds of Tokyo's self-titled third album in 2010 as its first single and the first thing the Australian band released on their new label, EMI. It also gave them their first ARIA chart entry, peaking at number 66 in May. Adam Spark plays guitar and keyboards, shares the vocals with Ian Kenny and co-produced with Scott Horscroft, and he admits nobody was quite sure where the song came from; he hears it as a bluesy drug trip, hence a strange video of dancing geisha girls and acid neon.

The recording had its own drama. They were in Sweden in the dead of winter, and every time the studio door opened, snow blew in and wrecked the takes, so the piano had to be recorded three times. Anthony Jackson plays bass and Adam Weston drums, all four share the writing credit, and Michael Brauer mixed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.