Merriweather indicated in 2009 that he planned another tattoo for his back – a 100-word excerpt from the last verse of the poem "Jim Jones", quoted in Robert Hughes' book The Fatal Shore, which includes "For night and day ... we toil and toil". Music Daniel Merriweather's first commercially released recording was a guest appearance on the track "All I Want" for Australian dance act Disco Montego's self-titled album in September 2002. The album peaked at No.17 on the ARIA Albums Chart. He signed with the local label, Marlin Records, which led to work with Mark Ronson, a United Kingdom DJ and guitarist, on the latter's debut album, Here Comes the Fuzz, ("She's Got Me" and "NYC Rules") in September 2003. Merriweather signed with Ronson's label, Allido Records, and worked on his debut solo single, "City Rules", as a revised version of "NYC Rules". It was produced by Ronson and featured raps from New York MC Saigon and was issued in early 2004. Other musicians on the single are ?uestlove, The Black Eyed Peas' horn section and members of Beck's backing band. He received an ARIA Award nomination for "City Rules" in the Best Urban Release category at the 2004 ceremony. "She's Got Me" was released as Merriweather's second single. While neither charted on the ARIA Top 50 Singles Chart, both became favourites in clubs and urban music circles. "City Rules" won the Most Performed Dance Work category at the APRA Awards of 2005 and "She's Got Me" won the Best Urban Release category at the ARIA Music Awards of 2005. "City Rules" obtained some airplay on the major Australian commercial radio stations FOX FM (Melbourne)/2Day FM and B105. In 2005, he co-wrote and co-produced much of Phrase's debut album Talk with Force, also lending vocals to three tracks including the single "Catch Phrase". In March 2006, Undercover News reported that Merriweather was recording his debut album, The Fifth Season, with Ronson producing. However, in August 2011, Merriweather recalled: "It was 12 songs out of a whole bunch of songs that I'd written. I came up with the idea of calling it The Fifth Season and someone put it on Wikipedia. But it wasn't really an album – it was just a collection of songs. There's a difference". In early 2007, Ronson featured Merriweather's lead vocals on a cover version of The Smiths' song "Stop Me If You Think You've