St. Purple & Green

This was one of the earliest songs to be written for Visions of a Life, Vocalist Ellie Rowsell penned the lyrics while Wolf Alice was on tour with Alt-J in Europe about her grandmother called Jean. The singer recalled to Consequence of Sound: "She was a very chatty, eccentric character who unfortunately got dementia. She sang me a song about a place called 'Purple & Green' and despite it not making much sense, it resonated with me for some reason. My grandma was not afraid of death but rather quite excited about it; I've always found death deeply terrifying so this outlook comforted me. I imagine her now in this make believe place called Purple & Green, which were also her favourite colours, and there she is the queen! This fantastical element to the song was peppered in to the music when Joel (Amey, drums) added the mellotron voices to the latter half of the song. They remind me of sirens, beautiful yet dark and twisted water fairies luring sailors in to the sea. I think this was one of our most ambitious songs; we had to do a little convincing to people that it was worth bringing to the studio as the demos didn't quite resonate with anyone else except ourselves. I am so happy we pursued, as it has become a favourite and was one of the most moving to record - I did a shed a tear or two!"