returns on "Judas". Throughout the album, he sung with a falsetto, leading to comparisons of Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner and Curtis Mayfield, which was a shift away from the Bob Dylan tone that he used on Us and Us Only. In a contemporary interview, Burgess explained that he was not "consciously looking for new influences", and that "when the sun's shining [in Los Angeles] you want to make music that's appropriate". In his autobiography Telling Stories (2012), he said that he found a copy of Mayfield's Back to the World (1973) in his wife's collection, but was otherwise unaware of his other music outside of the Impressions and Super Fly (1972). Various musicians contributed to the recordings: Ged Lynch with percussion on "Judas", "Love Is the Key", "Wake Up" and "Ballad of the Band"; Plunk with backing vocals on "Love Is the Key", "A Man Needs to Be Told" and "Is It in You?"; Yvonne Marx with backing vocals on "Love Is the Key" and "Ballad of the Band"; Daniel Lanois with pedal steel on "A Man Needs to Be Told"; and Jim Keltner with percussion on "A Man Needs to Be Told". Alongside this, Ramirez and Bernard Fowler sung backing vocals on "You're So Pretty – We're So Pretty", with the former also performing additional bass. Burgess said these two, who would be around Saber's house, were initially left uncredited in the album's liner notes. He was aware of Lanois from his past work with U2, but focused on him more when he appeared on Dylan's Time Out of Mind (1997), which also featured Keltner. Tracks The opening track, "You're So Pretty – We're So Pretty", features looping beats and chunky bass, which evoked Saber's previous work on Black Grape's debut album. During the writing of the album, Burgess said he had been consuming a lot of hip hop music, namely Ol' Dirty Bastard and his track "Got Your Money" (1999). He wanted to his own song with money being the focal point; "show me the money" was a popular saying during this period, which is what Burgess built a track around. The title, "You're So Pretty – We're So Pretty", was adapted from a chapter name in Pure Drivel (1998) by Steve Martin. Saber changed the speed of the demo that Blunt and Rogers had made, which was one of the few ideas that they brought over from