Ice Cold Cube

Brother fire, I got to verse with you
I just ran into this ice cold cube
Thought his ways could freeze me out
So I left him melting there no doubt hey
I suggest you think again my friend
Love is a circle with no end
A message given, heaven sent
I've seen you cause your own descent yeah

I smell a fox all alone at night
Ten thousand footsteps out of sight
I turned your darkness into light
Get down she'll blind ya
Get down she'll hypnotize ya
She'll see clean right inside your plan
And turn to say that ain't no man

Sister fire, I feel your glow
Walk on true 'cause they don't know
Sister ice, I felt your chill
Must have been a bitter pill

I smell a fox all alone at night
Ten thousand footsteps out of sight
I turned your darkness into light
Get down she'll blind ya
Get down she'll hypnotize ya
She'll see clean right inside your plan
And turn to say that ain't no man

Lyrics by:
Brown

Music by:
Brown / Mounfield / Maddix / Ipinson

Written:
1996

Personnel (live):
Aziz Ibrahim (guitar)
Ian Brown (vocals)
Gary Mounfield (bass)
Robbie Maddix (drums)
Nigel Ipinson (keyboard, backing vocals)

Produced by:

Available on:
Unfinished Monkey Business (6.27)

First live performance:
Reading Festival (25th August 1996)

Details:

 

Left: "Love is a circle with no end." Classic taoist Taijitu. The seed of Yin is to be found within Yang, and the seed of Yang within the Yin; the dark is always in the light and the light in the dark. Ian turned John's darkness into light, his negatives to positives. Ice Cold Cube features various natural dualities: darkness / light (see above)...male / female ("brother fire" / "sister fire")...hot / cold ("Sister fire, I feel your glow" / "Sister ice, I felt your chill").
Right: On the never-released Stone Roses track Black Sheep, one can envisage that Squire was casted as the 'black sheep of the (Stone Roses) family.' Here, he is characterized as a fox, a reclusive creature, most active at night, a symbol of cunning and trickery.

"If someone won't talk to ya, it's hard to know if you've fallen out with them."
(Ian Brown speaking about John Squire at the 1996 Reading Festival press conference)

"We used to play a lot together, from 10 in the morning 'til 7 at night, for three or four years. Then, for some reason, John didn't want to play with Reni. We started the album in '92 playing to loops. Reni would be, 'What am I here for ?', and that was the start of it. In one year, out of 300 days in the studio, we had a meal together four times."
(Ian Brown speaking to Melody Maker, 25th October 1997)

Along with High Time, Ice Cold Cube was one of two tracks previewed at Reading in August 1996. Ice Cold Cube was Reni's nickname for John Squire. The song originates from when Ian was learning to play guitar; Aziz showed him a chord - what Ian describes as a "Jimi chord" - and Ian came up with the riff. Aziz was responsible for the solo. Ice Cold Cube featured on Ian's debut solo LP, Unfinished Monkey Business. Ian's 'message' to John (lines 4 - 8) seems to have prompted the guitarist to pen his own 'letter' in response, in the form of Happiness Is Eggshaped; the lack of empathy is evident in the blasé pairing of "Happiness is eggshaped" (A penis is egg-shaped) with "love's a circle with no end."

"You can keep your kiss of death 'cause I choose glory, yeah." Melody Maker front cover, 31st August 1996. One would imagine that both Brown and Squire kept a keen eye on media coverage at the time of their split, as Squire's comments to the NME from 26th April 1997 illustrate: "I heard about the Reading gig. I read the block headlines, but I didn't wanna read it. Stuart read a few bits to me, so I got the general impression."

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