The Pleasures Take Us Track By Track Behind 'The Beginning Of The End'

The Beginning Of The End

Catherine: I have fallen in love so many times when I knew from the start it was doomed. Yet I chased it down like a salivating dog, like a desperate romantic and always ended up flat on the floor with another heartbreak. Tragic love from the first lyrical embrace.

Lachlan: When you’re in a certain mood - a certain phase perhaps - there seems to be nothing more attractive than a train wreck of a man/woman: a real fixer-upper. Sometimes two such train wrecks find each other at precisely the right moment, and there’s no turning back. Disaster looms, and everything is on the table (except for settling down and being  “boring” of course - y’know, the kind of behaviour that would probably ultimately make you happy).

It all happens so quickly. You go out to a bar one Friday night after work, you’re feeling a bit mischievous, you meet somebody, and then for the next six months you don’t sleep, you don’t eat, there’s bags under your eyes every morning and clothes strewn across your unmade bed each night when you get home. You survive on red wine and muesli bars. It’s wonderful. And terrible. It’s the beginning of the end.

Homewreckers

Lachlan: I imagine the home wreckers are kind of like the Ghostbusters - and this is their theme song, their advertising pitch. If you can solve a common problem - well that’s a pretty good business plan. Need to extricate yourself from the relationship, but you haven’t got the guts? We’ll plant the lipstick on your collar, or make your car smell like men’s cologne. There’s more money in this idea than there is in songwriting, I’m almost certain.

Catherine: I was inspired to write this album by a very hard time in my life, and I used this opportunity to vent my way out of all of the chaos I was experiencing - like cheap therapy. This song was inspired by a ‘branding’ I’d rather ignore, but when there came a chance to write a good song about it, I was willing to put my hurt aside and enjoy the creative process.

Every Story Has Two Sides

Catherine: As it suggests in the title this is another song inspired by recent life events. The two sides of the same story are described by two scorned lovers. The singing - almost screaming - comes from a place of intense frustration and angst in one of the most vulnerable moments - right in the midst of the breakup.

Lachlan: Fast forward a few years. Remember that thing that started in a blaze of passion - those two train wrecks? Well, it all went south after a while - but they decided to ride it out. Then it went south again - further south. Now it’s bitter - he said/she said stuff. The stuff they didn’t mean, stuff they didn’t do (and stuff they did). It’s a shouting match - it’s too late for logic. It’s just as passionate as when it all fell together - but now it’s all falling apart.  Somebody’s walking out and not coming back. You can’t fire me, I quit!

You Made Another Woman (Out Of Me)

Lachlan: We’ve all seen this movie - or maybe you’ve lived it?

They’re in some tropical paradise - on that getaway he’s long promised. But it’s pissing down, and she’s giving him the silent treatment.

He says he’s trying - does she need a drink?

He’s told her she looks good; what else does she want?

He objectifies her, she’s just looking for a connection. 

But they both know the affair is coming to an end. 

They’re both hurt. They’re both sorry.

In case you haven’t noticed by this point in the record, We here at The Pleasures are not interested in moralising. Adult life is hard, marriages are hard, and affairs are hard. Let’s cut these two some slack - they got in over their heads, and now it sucks. Maybe they’ll escape with some dignity - it seems like she will at least, she’s identified the issue and she’s moving on. Smart move.

Catherine: This song is a stand out for me. It was originally Lachlan’s idea - he brought it to me, and I just loved it immediately! It felt like I had written it and I could hear our voices singing together straight away.

Mutual Friends

Catherine: Another one pulled from the divorce and chaos trenches. Both Lachlan and I have been through more breakups than albums between us, and we write this from experience! You don’t just break up with them - sometimes it’s the whole gang!

Lachlan: Of course, there are kids involved. That makes things complicated. And the friends? You met them through me, but I think they like you more. They’ve been siding with you - but you’ve been in their ear. I’ll show them - it’s not as clear-cut as it appears.  There’s also the possibility that they think we’re both as bad as each other.

Paranoid

Lachlan: I’m a big believer in minding your own business. If you’ve ever heard that I had something bad to say about you, then I’m afraid you’ve been lied to - I keep that stuff to myself. But not everyone takes this approach - this song is a big middle finger to those people.

Catherine: I have always felt like people are talking about me behind my back, (and I’m often correct ha), but this track is a bit of a piss-take on my often overthinking of rumours that fly around. It’s fun sometimes to look at the things you cannot control and just let them go with a song!

Sad Song

Catherine: I knew when we started writing this song - on Lachlan’s bed in Melbourne,  drunk, late at night - that we had something really special. It felt so natural and honest and fragile. Who doesn’t love to turn to their favourite sappy, sad song when your misery needs some company?

Lachlan: They say there are five stages of grief. Maybe it’s seven. Either way, acceptance always seems to be the last one. And grief is a broad term - in this case, I’m talking about the grief that comes after love.

There’s a theme of acceptance in Sad Song -  and even a willingness to give it another run with somebody else - but I’m not completely sure we’re there yet. In the last chorus we’re telling you this metaphorical record we’re playing for you is one you NEED to hear. Why? Because we haven’t quite let go. 

Howlin’ For My Darlin’

Lachlan: The Wolf is my favourite of those old blue guys. He became famous late in life - but he was bigger, badder and smarter than everybody around him. He treated his band well - he gave them health insurance. He never accepted the Chess Records Cadillac - he didn’t want to owe them anything. And when I hear him howlin’; for his darlin’ - and hear him wailin’ those “woohoo’s” - I feel genuinely excited.

This feels like dangerous music - we shouldn’t be touching it. This was all Damian Cafarella’s idea - I was terrified. I sang a little demo, making up the words as I went and then they stuck. I was timid, and shy. Then I heard Catherine sing it. I heard Catherine scream it! And it was on - “We’re doing this”, I said. And she did too. And we did it. And here it is. What’s the premise - in this context? Me and Cate - we’re both in love with the same woman - but if she really loved her she’d set her free,  and let me have her! That makes sense, doesn’t it? Or am I just a deluded male? I think I answered my own question.

Catherine: Love me some Howlin Wolf, and it’s a pleasure to pay respect to one of the legends as best as we can.

Three Star Hotel

Catherine: I have spent many a night in a cheap hotel with a man I only see every now and again. Some may call them “friends with benefits”- and they are always a great inspiration for country songs. This is inspired by my single periods in life. Free and easy, never wanting to settle down again and run my own race. Until love smacks you in the face again that is!

Lachlan: Quite honestly, I’d settle for two-star accommodation, and I’ve certainly made do with one. Isn’t it romantic though? You and your gal/fella in cheap digs - one of those joints with the pebbledash/roughcast interior walls and ceiling and the Nescafe coffee. You’re lucky if there’s air-con - even luckier if it works. I’ve had some of my best nights in those places - feeling like Bonnie and Clyde, drinking cheap whiskey direct from the bottle (it burns through the paper cups), cooking up microwave meals and watching foreign language TV, knowing you’re going to part ways somewhere down the road, but not just yet.

I Fell For It

Lachlan: I sat down at the piano in my apartment towards the end of the writing/recording sessions for this record and started playing a little blues in G like a poor man’s Leon Russell. Catherine had been on the phone to Brad and she just kind of wandered over and started singing this song like it was already written, and I started singing along like I’d heard it before. It wasn’t, and I hadn’t.

But it soon was. This one kinda summed up the whole process, and when we got in and recorded it the next day we just let it happen like the night before - and it did. You know what it’s about. We got taken for a ride - but his words were sweet, and he had great hair - and the brightest blue eyes. Even I could see that. I’d have fallen for him too. 

Catherine: The harrowing tale of the bullshitter. I know him. He’s a jerk. He deserves a song. Here you go “that person!”

Seven Spanish Angels

Catherine: A classic that I have always loved to sing since I was just starting out in music. It’s a  special moment on the record between Lach and I where we sat down and just sang without any pressure. We have a mutual love of great songs - and this is certainly one.

Lachlan: They were praying for the lovers in the valley of the gun. Well, that’s pretty much it right there, isn’t it? This is a tragic love story - doomed from the start. I believe the lovers in question were an outlaw and his accomplice - who I take to be a smart, bold and sassy señorita destined for much greater things than to lose her life beside her wayward Romeo. This was always going to end the record - from the first time we sang it together it felt right. It doesn’t need a horn section like the original - just a guitar, two voices and a strong appreciation of tragedy. This record dives deep into love’s grey areas, so it almost felt like a relief to finish it off on a note of pure, naive,  unadulterated romance.

The Beginning Of The End is out now via MGM. You can listen to the album below.