Dubstar: WE STILL BELONG originally included on United States of Being album

Beginnings…

Dubstar was dropped by EMI in November of 2000. The sales of Make It Better had been anemic, the promotion for the album non-existent. It was the end for Dubstar.

Chris and I kept in contact and occasionally worked on projects together, but it would be six years later in 2006 that Sarah, who was now the vocalist in Client, agreed that the time was right for more. Incredibly the ensuing drama around this decision grew over seven years …until the entire reformation of Dubstar was abandoned in early 2014.

Steve Hillier

Friday 16th December 2022

But not before nearly forty new Dubstar songs had been recorded, more than two albums worth. Although there was never an official title, they became known as United Status of Being after someone (and we still don’t know who) leaked to Wikipedia that we were working on an album of that name. That revelation caused some significant difficulties.

Consequently, the United States of Being songs came in two distinct volumes and by the start of 2012 the recording and mixing for dozens of the songs was completed, sometimes with outside help (Phil Bodger, Stephen Hague, Tim Mason et al) but mainly at my studios in Hove. We were ready to launch.

The delays in releasing the tunes were never about the quality of the music, but what we were going to do with them. It was a perplexing issue for all involved with some extraordinary twists and turns. More of the incredible USOB story another time…

We Still Belong

Human League!

I wrote We Still Belong in 2007, and despite us not working together for years at that point I’d always intended Sarah to sing it. We Still Belong was my vision for how the next Dubstar album should sound. It made sense to return to the essence of the act: Hip Hop Breakbeats, Dub Bass, soaring melodies and emotive words. And this time with an added Electric Grand Piano! That’s where We Still Belong came in.

As a child, I had been mesmerised by Human League’s song ‘Dreams of Leaving’. Way back in 1980 they seemed to be an act at the pinnacle of their art boldly discussing a terrible social injustice. We Still Belong is born of the same spirit: a refugee’s tale but told in the only way Dubstar could…how it feels to live with the loss of your home. Its writing was inspired by the classic episode of the sitcom Thick Of It called ‘The Rise of the Nutters’ and by the political weaponisation of the fear of immigration, how refugees had been dehumanised and transformed into a threat, an enemy. Looking back from the carnage of 2022 it’s extraordinary to trace how deeply this attitude has affected the UK and how much has changed since 2007. From Brexit to Rwanda, from Nigel Farage to Boris Johnson, the British population is being distracted daily from local political problems by tales of imminent national destruction from people who are sometimes just seconds away from drowning.

But back in 2007, the result was one of my all-time favourite Dubstar songs, and one I return to regularly. I hope you enjoy it.

This article includes excerpts from DUBSTAR.COM. Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com

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