The Age Of Anxiety

Shortly after Jamie Cullum made his first television appearance - on Parkinson at age 23 - he signed a £1m contract for three albums with Universal. His first album with the label, Twentysomething, was the fastest-selling jazz album in UK chart history and Cullum ended 2003 as the UK's biggest selling jazz artist of all time. "The Age Of Anxiety," recorded 17 years later, finds him reflecting on his meteoric rise and how he has grown to become a family man and musician. "But what's a man these days?" I hear you cry And are we raising up our children right? Is my career gonna reignite? Cullum told the BBC the song is about all the things that worry him. "It's about the age we live in," he explained, "but it's also about my encroaching middle age, and the kinds of anxieties and the things I might think about when I'm lying awake." Cullum added: "When I was 23, I had this moment where I was super well-known and everything took off very quickly. And it's kind of a moment of harking back to that."

I just wanna live inside sometimes Don't wanna have to beg you to subscribe The opening line came from someone telling Cullum he doesn't share enough of his personal life, and he felt as if he wanted to jump out of the window. The rest of the song became a free association of concerns, including how the debate about the UK leaving the EU was fueled by fomenting fear of immigrants. As the son of an immigrant from Burma, the subject is close to Cullum's heart. No, I won't be your apparatchik And be the kind who's blind to all its magic So here comes your European exit With asylum seekers in your attic Reflecting on the verse, Cullum explained to The Guardian: "We have a duty to show compassion, to people who are in the greatest kind of need. But there are no simple answers, and I hope this song isn't heavy-handedly saying there are. Songs are uniquely positioned to hold the opposites perhaps more than some other mediums can."

The song refers to texts Cullum received from the late Amy Winehouse, who passed away in 2011. Do those kids know that I was somebody? And I've kept all my texts from Amy Cullum and Winehouse were friends in the early 2000s, and she supported him on his first tour. While Cullum was clearing out his studio in 2018 he came across some old phones, including a BlackBerry. When he plugged the Blackberry in, he found a bunch of old text messages between him and the Back to Black star; Cullum felt heartbroken as he read the texts and recalled how her tragic story unfolded.