Dubstar’s Tiny Secrets was written to be included in our 2008 comeback album United States of Being and was inspired by conversations with two of my musical heroes, Cat Goscovitch and John Foxx. What a pairing!
If I remember rightly, Cat and I were writing a song together round at mine in 2005. I was pointing out some problem or other, something we had to change. I was probably concerned about getting on the radio. She replied, “Yes Steve, but the laws of the universe don’t apply to me.” I thought this was one of the funniest, most amazing things she’d said, and Cat is one of the most quotable people I’ve ever known. I wasn’t sure what she meant exactly, or how it related to our song but I knew that line had to be used somewhere.
Around the same time, I’d interviewed John Foxx for Future Music Magazine (I don’t think the interview was ever published). We talked about our love for our favourite drum machine, the Roland CR-78. He told me how much he loved the smallness of its sounds, and how they still sounded perfect on a record. And there it was: the Roland CR-78 drum machine was our tiny secret.
Roland CR-78 drum machine
How to make a secret
As usual, it took me a while to get round to actually writing the song, I think it came together in the first flourish of excitement of us getting back together in 2006. Lyrically, the song hints at escaping a controlling partner, which was a hot topic at the time and perfect for a Dubstar song.
Tiny Secrets was recorded during the long and fruitful burst of recording activity in 2008, just before Sarah left to return to Client. When it came to recording the Dubstar version, I got my CR-78 out for what turned out to be its last outing, and it became the rhythmic basis for the whole song. I sold it later that year. I’d like to say I miss it, but to be honest it was always difficult to work with and impossible to sync with anything else I owned. In the end I replaced its snare with a couple of Korg KR-55 samples: one from Depeche Mode’s Dreaming of Me and another from a sample CD I’d picked up along the way. Much as I like the CR-78 snare, it has a bite to it and was too much for this tune. Perfect for this one though.
There are remarkably few synths on this demo. My Roland Juno-106 comes in after the break to back up the live bass, and I think that’s my ARP Solina (which I ended up giving to Hockeysmith) in the instrumental section. The rest is some beautiful guitar from Chris, including, unusually for Dubstar, acoustic strumming, and my Yamaha CP-70B chiming away in the background. Maybe it’s the stripped-back feel that reminds me of Keane, along with the piano and the vocal melody. And the words.
Thinking back now
Tiny Secrets is a terrific snapshot of how well the three of us worked together. This is prime Chris and I particularly like Sarah’s vocal, she nails the song. I also like living inside the sound of this song, all the parts fit together nicely, something you can’t always say about a Dubstar record!
This version is the demo, my favourite (there are a couple of other versions naturally). It’s a bit rough around the edges, and the middle section is unfinished, the record just sort of stops. I did wonder about Sarah doing a spoken-word bit there, but decided that would be far too 1995. Even so, Tiny Secrets feels complete to me. To borrow from Ronseal, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Remind us to find that tin sometime? The tin that tells us how a Dubstar record should sound [note to self, this joke doesn’t work…don’t take it out, leave it in the post].
And would Tiny Secrets have finally made it to the album? It’s a quintessential Dubstar song, but I’m not sure it fits with the others that were around at the time. Then again, what do I know? I’m the worst person to A&R my own songs. Maybe it would have been Dubstar’s ninth hit?
