Protection

After the departure of their vocalist Shara Nelson, the Massive Attack trio concluded they could never replace her, so they chose to bring a new diversity to their sound with a selection of rotating guest vocalists. For their sophomore album's title track and lead single they recruited Everything but the Girl's Tracey Thorn, who penned the haunting love song's lyrics.

The song was also included on Everything But the Girl's compilations The Best Of and Like the Deserts Miss the Rain.

Michel Gondry, who helmed the song's music video, won the 1995 MTV Europe Music Award for Best Director for his work on this song. Massive Attack's Robert '3D' Del Naja recalled the shooting of the clip to The Guardian February 6, 2010: "The Protection video shoot was the most agonising by far. We were lucky to work with Michel Gondry but I can safely say it was the start of all my back problems in life. I had to hold myself for around 15 takes against a slanting wall, in freezing Paris weather. We couldn't get our heads around it until he bought this scaled-down Lego model to the pub… or was it the record company? Either way I had a drink in my hand. But you couldn't storyboard it; without the model you couldn't understand how it would work. He was a very subtle guy, not a big booming director, and had such a strong imagination you had to trust him completely. I'd love to say that idea came all from us, but as a band I guess we take comfort in the fact that he was inspired by the song we gave him."