“Hunting For Witches” by Bloc Party

"Hunting for Witches" was the third single from A Weekend in the City, Bloc Party's second album, and Wichita sent it out in July 2007. It's a pointedly topical song: the lyrics grew out of the July 2005 bombings on London's transport network, the September 11 attacks and, above all, the way the media reacted to them, and how much sway the press holds over everyday life. Kele Okereke explained that one of the buses blown up, the 30 in Hackney, ran just round the corner from where he lived, and that he wrote the song while watching how easily the mainstream press was whipped into a fury, convinced the media had been trading on fear ever since.

The four members share the writing credit. Jacknife Lee produced, Tom McFall engineered and Cenzo Townshend mixed. It peaked at number 22 in the UK, and its video was the most stripped-down of any from the album.

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