Razorlight have released the video for new single ‘Burn, Camden, Burn’, a previously never before heard track from 2009, out via Atlantic Culture Records.
The video for ‘Burn, Camden, Burn’ is a window into a phase in Johnny Borrell’s teenage years. Filmed in 1999 the footage is edited from a longer film ‘Teenage Logic’ which Johnny worked on and then abandoned in his pre-Razorlight years.
Recalling the Paul Morrissey verite superstar films shot at Warhol’s The Factory in the late 60s, the video is a slowly rolling flashback from Johnny’s life at age 19. ‘Teenage Logic’ – and the video cut for ‘Burn, Camden, Burn’ – offer a perspective on his journey from the grubby underground of lowlife London to the front cover of Vogue to the quiet lanes of rural France and back to the festival fray.
Speaking on the video, Borrell says “When they told me they were going to use a song which is about my life when I was 19 I remembered I’d made a film at exactly the same point. I made the film when I was 19 and I’m singing a song about being 19, so it made sense to use the footage. It was a period in my life when I was into Warhol, existentialism and Milo Manara.”
The release of ‘Burn, Camden, Burn’ coincided with the song’s use in the brand new North London Apple TV+ show, “Trying”. With much of the music for the show supplied by Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Razorlight un-earthed the track at the request of the show’s director Jim O’Hanlon who felt it was a perfect fit.
Recording sessions took place in London and were working towards a fourth album which was eventually abandoned. The original production was by Edwyn Collins and Dan Grech-Marguerat came in for overdubs and mixing. The track was recorded with Gus Robertson (guitar) Liam Hutton (drums), Freddy Stitz (bass), David ‘Skully’ Sullivan Kaplan (percussion) and Johnny Borrell (guitar/vocals).