Sarah Cracknell's Personal Best
Having signed off with International, likely their last studio album, Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell walks Alan Pedder through her personal highlights of the trio’s 35-year career.
I’ve never worked in the kind of record shop a guy could humblebrag about.
The Woolworths music desk didn’t have the cultural cachet of, say, Spillers or Sister Ray. We were one rung from the bottom of the ladder, just a hair less uncool than buying your music at Sainsbury’s or Tesco. We didn’t have much in my smalltown store. Business was brisk with greatest hits and tacky compilations with one-word titles and artwork that boasted graphic-design-is-my-passion, but not a great deal else. For a while I’d get away with playing Jagged Little Pill over the shop stereo, until one day I forgot to run to skip “You Oughta Know” and it felt like the world’s loudest f-bomb went off in every department. Red faces! Scandal! But I didn’t get fired.
After that it was strictly back to pop that likely wouldn’t ruffle any feathers. We’d fight constantly over the CD multichanger – for the love of god, Karen, no more Take That – but one thing everyone agreed on was London trio Saint Etienne. They’d just scored their biggest chart hit with the forever classic “He’s on the Phone”, and their first compilation – released 30 years ago this week – was our one collective salvation as we faced down another mind-numbing season of goodwill and poor taste. I love a good Christmas song – as do ‘the Ets’, if people still call them that – but not for two eight-hour shifts, six weekends in a row. So thank you, Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, and Pete Wiggs for being that life-saving buffer.
Of course, Saint Etienne went on to better, if not necessarily ‘bigger’, things after that definitive collection of their first five years, from the soothing ear-candy of 2000’s Sound of Water and 2005’s concept album Tales of Turnpike House through to recent gems I’ve Been Trying to Tell You (2021) and this year’s International.
Released in September, just nine months after they gave us The Night, a wistful diversion into ambient pop, International returned the band to the top ten of the albums chart for the first time since 1994’s Tiger Bay, perhaps proving the old adage that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s (almost) gone. The end of Saint Etienne as an albums band has been rumoured a few times over the years, but International is almost certainly it.
“It’s a happy-sad thing for me,” says Sarah Cracknell of the trio’s grand exit when she joins BEST FIT over video call from her Oxfordshire home. “I think the decision is absolutely right, and 100% what we should be doing. There’s not one record that I don’t like much or that I’m ashamed of. There’s nothing we’ve done that I wish we hadn’t, so I think we’d better get out now while we still have this clean copybook.”
"If I thought I was never going to be in the studio recording a song again, I’d be pretty devastated."
That International has clearly struck a chord with the Saint Etienne faithful, and beyond, feels richly deserved, meeting the moment with, yes, a little bittersweetness, but also camaraderie and joy. Plenty of familiar faces pop up in the writing and production credits, including members of Xenomania, Doves, The Chemical Brothers, Orbital, and Erasure, while guest vocalists Nick Heyward and Janet Planet of Confidence Man prove to be great matches for Cracknell’s playfully warm and pebble-smooth tone. It’s a particularly lovely touch that to get a full feel for the album – and the true depth of its title – one has to look beyond the streaming world for the spoken-word interludes that exist only on physical forms of the album. Not only are those interludes a major callback to the band’s early releases, but International is also a final, firm reminder that the band’s “quintessentially English” tag was always a little off base.
Beyond the two shows they’ve announced for next summer opening for Belle & Sebastian, there will likely be a handful of festival dates and possibly a “sort of final” UK tour in 2027, but nothing much is set in stone. “Honestly, I haven't really thought past the end of 2026 at this point,” she says, laughing. Not even the possibility of a new Sarah Cracknell solo album? “I think there is a part of me that feels that if I thought I was never going to be in the studio recording a song again, I’d be pretty devastated,” she says. “I’m sure I’ll do something, but I don’t know what or with whom. I like writing songs, so maybe I’ll just write for other people.”
Other future paths for drama school-trained Cracknell could include a return to acting, or world-class quizzer based on her recent success down the local pub. But first we have some questions of our own regarding her personal favourites among the Ets’ expansive catalogue…
"Nothing Can Stop Us" by Saint Etienne (1991)
BEST FIT: Let’s start with “Nothing Can Stop Us”, the very first song you ever made with Bob and Pete. Did you get to hear it as a demo or did you just get straight into it in the studio?
SARAH CRACKNELL: I think I just turned up in the studio. We were recording with an amazing guy called Ian Catt, in his parents’ house in Mitcham in Surrey, which is quite a long way from where we lived. I remember feeling quite nervous. I was aware of “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”, and I loved that record, so I knew it was an exciting opportunity. When I got to the studio, we sat around and worked on the song together. I was handed some lyrics and asked to do part of it as spoken word. I’d done a bit of talking on records before, when I was in a group called Lovecut DB with my friend Douglas Benford, but that was mostly in Spanish. Don’t ask me why in Spanish because I can’t speak it. I was just reading it phonetically. I guess I did have the whole drama school thing going for me, and now I’ve done quite a lot of talking on records over the years.
Exactly, and you’ve done it again on “Brand New Me”, which we’ll get to later.
Yeah. So, although I was nervous, it did come quite naturally and from there they just kept asking me back to do more and more things. I just slotted in, I think, and then they were just stuck with me [laughs].
I think “Nothing Can Stop Us” had to be on this list, not just because it was the first but because the reference points in this song matched with everything I’d been doing, to a degree, and what I wanted to do even more of. I’d been in bands with my lovely friend Mick Bund for years but we never got a deal. We put one single out off our own back, but I’d never recorded something that went on to actually be a physical release that people could buy across the country. I see “Nothing Can Stop Us” as the first proper record that I’d been involved in, so of course, for me, it’s of monumental significance and comes with loads of memories.
It must have been amazing to see it on the shelves of an actual record shop.
Oh god, yeah. The joy of seeing your record in a shop is just amazing. It’s huge. And it especially meant so much when I had been in bands since I was 15 years old and it took something like 9 years to get to actually see a record I’d been involved in, in a shop. It was absolutely mind boggling and so, so brilliant.
Have you hung on to a first pressing of the single?
Do you know what? My records have gone astray over the years. I was living in a flat with Mick and when we moved out I think most of my vinyl went with him. Some of it went back to my mum’s and I think she just binned some. Then, recently, my husband was trying to find room for some more vinyl, and he just gave what was left of my records to our youngest son. It was horrifying. So, anyway, I don’t have a lot of my own vinyl at the moment. Obviously there’s a lot of Saint Etienne stuff in the house still, because I’m married to our manager. Plus what’s now in my son’s bedroom [laughs].
Were you already a fan of the Dusty Springfield song that’s sampled on “Nothing Can Stop Us”?
I love Dusty Springfield, but honestly there were so many samples flying around for the first two albums that I don’t have an affinity for any particular one. There was so much sampling going on, which is of course the reason why Saint Etienne could exist in the first place. It just wouldn’t have happened if sampling wasn’t available, technology-wise, to Bob and Pete. We wouldn’t be a band of 35 years standing. With our second album, So Tough, it actually cost more money to clear all the samples than it did to make the recordings!
What’s the most unusual place you’ve heard “Nothing Can Stop Us” out in the wild?
It actually gets played quite a lot! I'll tell you what, I was at a gig full of very young people recently – actually it was my son’s band – and this guy I’d known since he was about five years old came over and said, “I just wanted to let you know that I was out on a first date with this girl and ‘Nothing Can Stop Us’ came on in the restaurant.” He told her that it was his friend’s mum who was singing, and now they’re going out. I was very glad to be of such use!
Incredible. Do you feel like this song has taken on any different meanings for you, personally, over the years?
Actually, I do probably feel more for it now than I did at the time, and I think it’s probably to do with the sentiment of the song. Nothing can stop us then, and here we are a long time later still standing.
The thing is, you’ve got to remember, I’ve been singing it live for what feels like forever, so sometimes it does lose its meaning a little bit. That can happen when you sing the same song over and over and over and over. But I do think it resonates quite a lot at this point in time. I have a real fondness for it at the moment.
I had totally forgotten that Kylie Minogue did a cover of this song, as one of first tracks she recorded for her 1994 self-titled album. You worked with her a little bit on that too, right?
Yeah, but my involvement feels a bit strange because she’s so, so brilliant. I remember she said to the producers, Bob and Pete, that she was really nervous about doing the spoken word stuff and asked if I would do it for her on the record. I remember saying to her, “No, no, you can do it. You’ll be fine.” I went into the studio and sort of talked her through it a bit, and of course she did it brilliantly. That was my only involvement really, to get her over that hurdle.
I love this story! I mean, if it wasn't for you we might not have had the “stick or twist” bit of “Confide in Me”.
[laughs] Well, who knows? And what would we do without that? We all love that.
"Like a Motorway (Chekhov Warp Dub)" by Saint Etienne x Chemical Brothers (1994)
BEST FIT: Next we’ve got a nicely leftfield pick in a remix of “Like a Motorway” by the Chemical Brothers. The video on YouTube is mislabelled as the vocal remix, but I think we are talking about the dub mix, right?
SARAH CRACKNELL: Yeah, I’m really happy with the dub. We had a lot of brilliant remixes around that time, so many good ones! I really enjoy it when you give a song to someone to remix and it comes back as a completely different beast, which, to me, is the whole point of a remix. I mean, just look at the Aphex Twin remix of “Who Do You Think You Are”. It doesn’t sound anything like the record and I love, love, love that. If you’re gonna do a remix, then really go for it, I say.
When we got the Chems to do “Like A Motorway”, it was really a perfect fit. I’m a big fan, and we actually got quite close around that time because we’d all go to The Heavenly Social in the basement of The Albany pub where they were DJing, back when they were known as The Dust Brothers. We’d be jumping around on the tables while they played. It was so much fun. That place kind of became our spiritual home, and I think it was a bit like that for the Chems too, because that’s where everything started for them. It's difficult to put into words but I think they have a similar feel for music as we do. I mean, if you ask what’s similar about Saint Etienne and The Chemical Brothers, most people would say nothing, but it’s something inside us, I think. It’s not a surface level thing.
Those years were a real education for me. I mean, I knew Andy Weatherall, because we both grew up in Windsor. I knew about all the Boy’s Own stuff. I’d been to Shoom, and stuff like that. But when I first started going to clubs in the ‘80s, there weren’t that many around. For me, the early to mid ‘90s were when I really started to go out, especially in London, where there were just so many different clubs you could go to. You could go out clubbing all night on a Friday and then go straight to another club that started in the morning and went on till Sunday afternoon, which I hadn’t really done before. So it was a very exciting time, and of course it did have an influence on the band. Our first two records, and also the third one, Tiger Bay, all have a lot of dance elements.
What were your some of your favourite clubs to go to?
I used to go to Smashing. There were two nights I used to go to in what’s now a brasserie called Zédel, but it was the Atlantic Bar and Grill at the time. I think one was run by Sean McClusky, but you’re making me think too much now [laughs]. I’m not very good at remembering things.
"Wood Cabin" by Saint Etienne (1998)
BEST FIT: Next you’ve chosen the opening track to your fourth album, Good Humor. What is it about “Wood Cabin” that earns it a place in your personal best?
SARAH CRACKNELL: I love the spookiness of it. It just gets me every time. It’s so sinister, but in a good way. I think that’s probably why it was featured on The Sopranos, but don’t ask me which scene it was used in. I know it was bad. Bad stuff happened. But you’ll have to look it up.
More than anything, listening to this song just reminds me of being in Malmö, living in an apartment with Bob and Pete, and going to the studio every day with the producer, Tore Johansson. There was another studio in the same building that was either run or owned by the guys from the Swedish band Eggstone, who, if you haven’t heard of them, are really good. They had all these brilliant players so we’d poach the odd one here and there to come and play on our songs. We got Jez Williams from Doves to come out and play some guitar, and my sister-in-law Debsey [Wykes, of Dolly Mixture] came out to sing some backing vocals. She brought her new baby with her too, little Sadie. It was a really lovely time because it just felt like we lived there. We’d go to the same restaurants all the time and just hung out with people.
There was such a nice cooperative kind of feel to the building where the studios were. There was a lovely Japanese guy who was making an album there at the same time, Hideki Kaji, and he used to come and hang out with us in our flat. And, while I was there, the guys from Eggstone asked me if would come and put a vocal on one of his tracks, so I did. I sang on a track with him called “Tokyo to London”, and that was really fun. I had a really good feeling about the whole time we spent in Malmö, and I really love the album we made. Tore is an amazing producer, and he played a lot of the instruments too.
I managed to dig out one of the old Saint Etienne fan club zines and either Bob or Pete described this song as being about a sort of Unabomber, fear of the future scenario. What can you tell me about that?
Oh, did they say that? Well, that’s scuppered me then, hasn’t it? [laughs]
Let’s hear your interpretation anyway.
Yeah, it is a little bit Unabomber, but also a bit Blair Witch Project. Like, you’re in a forest of these huge, never ending redwood trees. I have to confess I forgot to listen to the actual lyrics before I chose this song. I’m just trying to think…
Well, there’s the first line of the chorus that I understand you lifted from an old Manic Street Preachers interview.
Right! Yeah. “Never write a love song / Never write a trip hop / Never write a ballad.”
Well, we write love songs all the time, and I’m pretty sure they have written some since then. Again, the Manics are another band that we have a close affinity with. Part of our Heavenly spiritual family band. They’re great. I’m really fond of James and Nicky. I don’t know Sean that well, and I remember Richie vaguely. Nicky actually did a guest vocal on a song called “Nothing Left to Talk About” from my album Red Kite, since you reminded me of that record earlier.
I’d forgotten we’d taken that lyric from them. Isn’t that awful? Nicking people’s quotes from interviews. They didn’t seem to mind, though. I think they forgave us. I think they realised it was more of a reverential situation than us taking the mickey. We wouldn’t dream of doing that!
The zine also described “Wood Cabin” as the most minimal Saint Etienne song up to that point in time, which I hadn’t really considered before as I always think of Good Humor as being quite a bright and brassy record.
Yeah, I love minimal, and I think that's one of our most successful minimal approaches to a track. People often think that minimal is so easy, but it's not. There's such a fine line between minimal and atmospheric and having a sound that just feels empty. There are some artists who really get it and sometimes I listen to songs of theirs and wonder how on earth they did it. Songs that have, like, three elements and nothing else going on but still sound full and expressive and brilliant. We've tried that a number of times, and occasionally we get away with it. I think “Wood Cabin” is a good example of where it works.
Do you play it much?
My kids do. I mean, they’re both grown up now, in their early 20s, but they both love “Wood Cabin” so I hear it more than I play it.
"Downey, CA" by Saint Etienne (2000)
BEST FIT: Your fourth pick is “Downey, CA” from my personal favourite Saint Etienne album, Sound of Water.
SARAH CRACKNELL: I love Sound of Water. I keep bringing it up but whenever I do people are like, “Oh, yeah, hmmm.”
I guess they can’t help being wrong.
So bloody wrong!
Again, I think one of the reasons why I like Sound of Water so much is because we had a really lovely living-together situation, in Berlin that time. I do think that togetherness does add to the atmosphere of a record, when you’re all in it together. Evey day going to the studio then having dinner, sitting up late chatting, going to bed, and then waking up and having breakfast together. It definitely adds another element to the recordings. A different kind of intensity, maybe.
It's so ‘us’, but we turned up in Berlin with a lot less than Ronald and Robert and Stefan [of To Rococo Rot] thought we have for them work on. We wrote so much of that record in situ. For us, it was always kind of the idea that we would do that, but I think they expected us to at least have a song written, which, more often than not, we didn’t when starting a new album back in those days. I think they thought we’d come in with a song that we’d then put the music around and give to them to add stuff to and embellish. So, when we didn’t have that, I think they sort of realised, ‘Oh, hello, we’re in deep now.’
When we got the idea for “Downey, CA”, we were either on our way to or from the studio. I remember we walked past this shop front that was, in my mind anyway, a sort of architecture company office, and in the window they had this scale model of a social housing project. There were all these creepy little figures dotted around it. A woman with a deformed baby, stuff like that. But it was completely sun bleached and washed out, as if it had been there for a very long time. It looked kind of terrifying. You really wouldn’t want to live there. Anyway, we became a bit obsessed by it, making up stories about what all these characters were doing, and that’s how the song was written. It’s another one like “Wood Cabin” that I think is pretty spooky.
How did that connect with the real-life California town of Downey?
I think we just liked the sound of it. Downey, California. It’s such a great name.
I can’t remember that far back exactly what we were saying. The Carpenters came from Downey, but I can’t remember if we decided on the name and then the Karen Carpenter lyric came from that, or if it was the other way around.
Apparently, Weird Al Yankovic comes from Downey, CA too.
Really? I did not know that!
I wonder, do you think that apartment block model might have planted a seed for the concept you would later come up with for Tales of Turnpike House?
Possibly! That model wasn’t an apartment block, though. It was all on one level. I think it’s really useful to have a theme like that when you’re writing an album. I don’t want to say it makes writing songs so much easier, because that sounds a bit too flippant, but having a theme to work within does help you to focus your ideas. We knew we were going to write songs about all these different people in these different apartments and how they are all connected. That was partly inspired by the fact that Debsey and her husband Paul were living in the actual Turnpike House, which is a very tall tower block, in Islington. They were on the 27th floor or something crazy like that, where they could see pretty much the whole of London. Such a brilliant view.
“Brand New Me” by Saint Etienne x Confidence Man (2025)
SARAH CRACKNELL: I chose this song from the new album because, for me, it feels kind of like a full circle from “Nothing Can Stop Us”. It also has this euphoric chorus and then spoken word. The way it’s structured does feel quite similar.
Working with Grace and Aiden [aka Janet Planet and Sugar Bones] of Confidence Man has been so brilliant. Just a joy. They got in touch with me originally a couple of years ago, via Heavenly Records, and asked if I would do a guest vocal on one of their songs. “Brand New Me” was one of the things they came up with – a much more basic idea compared to what it’s become – and I said I’d do it. But, for whatever reason, the idea just drifted, probably because they suddenly got super busy as they became more famous.
Anyway, when we started working on International, I got in touch with Grace and asked if we could maybe use the song for our album instead, and the band were totally up for that idea. They were really happy about it, and it’s been an amazing thing to bring it life with them. They’ve been so, so helpful.
BEST FIT: How was that first meeting with them, which I think I read was at the first ever KITE Festival a few summers back?
Yeah, I think they might have been playing on a different stage to us and had a different dressing room area. But I was in touch with Grace and we were messaging, and then they came over to our trailer and were just so friendly. I think they properly liked us. They were fans, basically. We just had a really good chat and hung out for a bit.
They are mind-boggling to watch live. My jaw was on the floor. Like, isn’t she going to get hurt doing all that? Last time I saw them, at Brixton Academy, they came and sat with us for ages right after coming off stage. I can’t do that anymore. I’m usually too knackered after I come off stage and don’t have the energy for socialising, but I guess they do it all the time.
Back to “Brand New Me”, which was clearly always going to be a single. What’s your take on the lyrics?
I’d say it’s about stepping out on your own and leaving something behind. Not reinventing yourself, as such, but just changing your attitude to a situation that’s happened, a situation that wasn’t good for you. It’s about coming out of that situation and moving on. Helping yourself to a fresh new start, looking to the future and enjoying life.
It sounds so bright. Such a great pop song.
Yeah. I was actually thinking the other day that it reminds me a bit of Deee-Lite, which hadn’t popped into my head before then.
That’s funny because the press release for the album does in fact describe this track as like “Nothing Can Stop Us” meets “Groove is in the Heart”
[laughs] Oh wow! Okay. I'm right, then.
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