I Know What I’m Here For

I Know What I’m Here For is track three on the 1999 James album Millionaires and was released as the lead single from the album in July 1999.

It was jammed at Real World Studios on the night The Best Of went to Number One in March 1998 and apparently Larry was present and took part in the jamming sessions (this story was told to me by Tim).

The song was first aired publicly at the Glastonbury warm-up show at Oxford Brookes University on June 25th 1998 as part of the encore. The lyrics had been finished during the soundcheck as Tim had been trying out different takes on the them. The pronounced keyboard part was added before the December tour.

Tim later explained that the lyrics and in particular the “hanging on to late December” line referred to the internal problems that the band were having at the time and the fact that he was intending to leave the band after the December 1998 tour. Those issues were obviously resolved and the band continued.

Despite the high-tech video and significant MTV rotation, the song only reached number 22 in the charts. Mark won a bet with manager Peter Rudge who said that the single would break the top ten.

The song was used by Ford as their Champions League coverage theme tune around 2011-2.

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