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This song illustrates the singer's battle with depression and thoughts of suicide. This is a battle The Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft has known all too well, as he is a clinically diagnosed manic depressant who has battled with depression, drug addictions, and thoughts of suicide since the late '90s.
Ashcroft married Kate Radley from the band Spiritualized in 1995 - she's likely the inspiration for lines like:
"I hope you feel like I feel
Someone to stand beside me"
In his songs, Ashcroft has often expressed a desire for intimate understanding, with Radley in mind. It's what he calls a "positive love ambition."
"Urban Hymns" was conceived as a Richard Ashcroft solo album, as The Verve had broken up. As it moved forward, Ashcroft enlisted help from this former bandmates, and it ended up becoming a Verve album and re-forming the band. The album became one of the biggest in the history of their native UK, but in America, only the single "Bitter Sweet Symphony" had much impact. The band broke up again in 1999, got back together to release another album in 2008, then split up again soon after.
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