“Valerie” by The Zutons

"Valerie" comes from Tired of Hanging Around, the Zutons' second album, released in 2006, and by singer Dave McCabe's account it was dashed off in a hurry: the idea hit him in a taxi on the way to his mum's, and the whole thing was finished before he arrived, twenty minutes at most.

The Valerie in question was an American friend of McCabe's who had got into trouble over her driving. Drummer Sean Payne called the song a musical postcard to her, the singer admitting he's struggling and asking her to come and see him, and in 2019 she went public as the makeup artist Valerie Star. The writing credit is shared five ways, with McCabe and Payne joined by Boyan Chowdhury, Abi Harding and Russell Pritchard, and Stephen Street produced it, with Cenzo Townshend engineering.

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