SHED Seven's lost songs from their aborted contract with Taste Music are back in their hands at last, newly released by the York band in a 1,000 print run available from their website and Track Records.

Here singer Rick Witter gives a track-by-track guide to One Hand Clapping, The Unreleased Demos 2001-2003, the last recording sessions before the Sheds' demise in December 2003.

No One Wants To Know You When You're Down And Out (Studio, track one, Live, track 13): "I didn't deliberately set out to write a song about our imminent demise but obviously it's now become very apt. Essentially it's a relationship song, when the girl never comes out and you end up taking the last bus home. You could see The Killers or New Order writing it now, but in our defence we wrote it at the beginning of 2002."

Jekyll And Hyde: "That's about double acts who were so different in personality: like Morecambe and Wise: both were funny but very different."

Alarm Bells: "Another relationship song, about not getting your way."

Some People: "When we wrote that we thought we were on to something again. Lyrically I felt I was coming into my own and was finding my niche. I like the threat of violence in that song."

A Love Song For A Mermaid: "Who is she? She's whoever you want her to be. We just love that aquatic thing! If we'd spent proper time in the studio, we'd have probably got an orchestra and made it sound like it was underwater! It's a basic rock'n'roll song but the best thing about it is the title."

I Got Music; Country Pub (Stay Til Morning): "It took us a while to get back into the groove after Truth Be Told, and I just got my guitar out, not that I can play, and I scrabbled some chords together. Country Pub would have been a B-side, a bit of laugh with a really jangly sound. I Got Music I wrote on tour, which we almost never do. One night I just got straight on the bus and this melody came into my head and I'd written the song in an hour. It's about when things aren't working for you and you think who cares, we've still got the music."

Sad Song #32: "I might be wrong but I counted through our songs and that was the 32nd sad song I'd written. Like me growing up listening to The Smiths, people think of them as sad songs, but they're not, they're uplifting."

Wake Up Dead: "That came about after we covered Blondie's One Way Or Another. Everyone else disagrees but there's something about it that reminds me of Blondie."

Pages: "It's the archetypal Shed Seven B-side. Quite sweet, but it's one of those where you can only do so much with it."

Why Can't I Be You (demo): "It's just an OK song, but Taste insisted it should be the first single."

Hanging On The Outside (Live): "B-side of Why Can't I Be You. Even at the time I thought it was the better song. It was a lot more Shed Seven, and for a long time we opened shows with it because it just lifts and lifts all the way through."

Lovesongland: (hidden bonus): That's Alan (drummer Alan Leach) singing and playing the keyboards and drums. It dates from 2000. He likes to do these surprise things and then show us them. We thought 'what should we do with it?'. It's not Shed Seven, it's Alan, but we wanted it on there, so the best thing was to have it as the hidden track."

Updated: 15:51 Thursday, April 28, 2005