"It really started out as three seperate songs and we didn't know what to do with them," explains Thom of the creation of the six-and-a-half-minute epic. "Then we thought of 'Happiness [Is a Warm Gun] - which was obviously three different bits that John Lennon put together - and said, 'Why don't we try that?'"

After being asked if the song was about the Fall of the Roman Empire, Thom adopted this explanation, but other band members have likened the lyrics of the track to those of "The Bends." On one level, the lyrics are absurd; on another, they're quite serious. During the band's 1996 live sets, when they were opening for Alanis Morissette, the song ended with a very long Hammond solo courtesy of Jonny, drawing it out to the eleven-minute mark.