Travis – Selfish Jean

Song

"Selfish Jean" is a song by Scottish alternative rock band Travis, released as the second single from their fifth studio album, The Boy with No Name on 9 July 2007.

Lyrics

The title of the song is a reference to The Selfish Gene, a popular science book about evolution by Richard Dawkins. The song was written by Fran Healy in 2005 in his apartment in New York, and was demoed using Healy's own computer. He sampled the drum intro from the Iggy Pop song "Lust For Life", looped it to create a basic rhythm, and then played the song and recorded vocals over the top of the rhythm track.

The demo was then taken to Travis drummer Neil Primrose as an example of what to play, and thus, the song exists in its current form. The lyrics for the song's bridge are taken directly from an earlier B-side, "Standing On My Own", which appeared on the 1997 single "Tied to the 90s".

Background

The single found its way onto the BBC Radio 2 playlist, receiving around twenty plays per week. Even though it charted at a relatively disappointing No. 30 on the UK Singles Chart, it is a song much loved by Travis fans and is performed at a majority of Travis concerts. B-sides for the single include the newly written song "You Bring Me Down", as well as two Squeeze covers—"Is That Love" and "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)".

It currently remains, as of 2020, their last UK Top 40 hit.

Music video

The music video was released on the band's MySpace page  before the release of The Boy with No Name. Directed by American comedian Demetri Martin, the video features Martin who begins by wearing 19 T-shirts with words and pictures to illustrate lyrics from the song, removing them to progressively reveal the T-shirts underneath.

Some of these T-shirts have been recreated for sale: 'Aaaaahh... Selfish Jean', stretching from the back and rotating around to the front, and 'Art, Music, Jaffa Cakes', with additional tick boxes, which have been very popular among fans.

Album

The Boy with No Name è il quinto studio album della indie rock band scozzese Travis. L'album è uscito il 7 maggio 2007 nel Regno Unito.

Il titolo dell'album ha origine da un'email che il cantante Fran Healy e la moglie Nora hanno inviato ad un amico quando stavano scegliendo il nome da dare al loro figlio neonato. L'email conteneva una fotografia del piccolo, etichettata proprio "The Boy with No Name".

L'album ha ricevuto critiche molto positive, e si è piazzato alla posizione numero 4 della UK Album Charts e alla numero 1 della UK iTunes chart. Negli Stati Uniti, l'album ha debuttato alla posizione numero 58 della Billboard 200, vendendo 12000 copie nella prima settimana.

I Travis hanno dedicato l'album a Chris Blair della Abbey Road Studios e al campione mondiale britannico di rally Richard Burns, che morì trentacinquenne per un tumore al cervello nel 2005.

Artist

I Travis sono un gruppo rock scozzese di Glasgow formatosi nel 1995. Il nome deriva dal protagonista del film Paris, Texas di Wim Wenders. La band ha un sound molto influenzato dalla british invasion, deve molto alle sonorità derivate dai Beatles e dalla scena Britpop degli anni Novanta.

Hanno vinto due volte il premio per il British album of the year ai BRIT Awards e, insieme agli Oasis, sono ritenuti i precursori di band quali Coldplay, Keane e Snow Patrol. Hanno pubblicato sette album, il primo dei quali è Good Feeling, del 1997. L'ultimo disco, Everything at Once, è del 2016.