Personal Holloway

Band Quotes:

'It's about finding someone pretty close to me who tried to commit suicide - hence the references to paracetamol. I remember going to see her, drove there really fast at night, and the ambulance was there and all she was saying over and over was, 'Don't tell Gavin' - even though it was only me with her and the ambulance people. So a personal Holloway would be a personal prison, and because it was female I thought that Holloway [a women's prison in London] was appropriate. One of my favourite bits in this song is 'married by signs, deaf and dumb'. Some time before, I had gone away to an old country house and, in the toilet there, they had a list of all the people who'd lived there for the last 300 years, listing 'so and so, married this year to that person'. And for one couple about two hundred years ago, they had written 'deaf and dumb, married by signs'. Often when people try to commit suicide it's from the feeling of being misunderstood, and a cry for help, and I was thinking of the struggle that people must have had 200 years ago to live with being deaf and dumb. Though of course it's not dumb, it's just deaf. And being 'deaf and dumb with the lights on', it's like being trapped in a world where you can't speak or you can't hear, but it doesn't mean that your brain isn't fully functioning, as we obviously know now. So I suppose the song is about female struggle; my female song. 'Move a little way forward, breath life, could be a better plan' In other words, it's getting better. I was looking for something like an anti-grunge sentiment, totally the opposite of the bleakness before it. Something hopeful. I love that song.'- Gavin Rossdale

"One time we put tin foil under the strings of the 5th fret to get this really amazing metallic sound on "Personal Holloway," through that first intro." -Nigel Pulsford

Interviewer: What was the hardest song for you to write?
"The hardest emotionally or the hardest to do? The hardest emotionally was ‘Personal Holloway’. That’s a woman’s prison in England. It was dealing with someone who had an overdose. That was a hard one for me. … You’re dealing with a tragic situation, somebody who nearly died four times in my life, I tried to be really sensitive to the subject and still incorporate it in the song. It was a hard thing to do. The hardest one to write? All of them" - Gavin Rossdale