Ice Cold Cube

Brother fire I got to verse with you*
I just ran into this ice cold cube
Thought its ways could freeze me out
So I left it 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 (hey)

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 (25 August 1996)

Details:
Ice Cold Cube was one of two tracks (the other being High Time) previewed at Reading by the Squire-less Stone Roses. 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 came up with the solo. It appeared on Ian's debut solo album, with the title a reference to John Squire; 'Ice Cold Cube' was Reni's nickname for John (click here to read about the relevance of this nickname in the context of the Ten Storey Love Song video).

"It's about people who think they are better than other people. Not specifically Squire, but Reni used to call him Ice Cold Cube."
(Ian Brown - source, Ian Brown Official site).

There are a couple of obvious attacks on John in the verses. I think that John wrote his own response to Ice Cold Cube on Happiness Is Eggshaped. The following lines appear to be a direct response to lines 6, 7 and 8 of ICC:

Happiness is Eggshaped
and love's a circle with no end
....
I'll tell you something, I'll tell you true
Got a letter to send to you

This may be a sarcastic retort to Ian's "love is a circle with no end" by pairing it with the simplistic statement "Happiness is Eggshaped" (a penis is egg-shaped). And the letter Squire mentions could be his response to Brown's sent message that Squire caused his own descent. On HIE, Squire writes that "you can keep your kiss of death 'cause I choose glory." The shambolic Reading 96 performance was the 'kiss of death' to The Stone Roses; instead Squire chose glory - i.e. (commercial) success with another project. Indeed, perhaps Squire seeing this headline (Melody Maker, 31st August 1996) gave him the inspiration for the lyric:

The following text is from a Seahorses interview with the NME, 26th April 1997:

At which point, you kind of hoped that the Stone Roses would cut their losses and retain a certain dignity in the eyes of history. But no. On they limped, until a deeply ignominious – nay tragic – performance at Reading last year, when Ian, Mani, three session musicians and a truly excruciating dancer reduced grown men to tears. After they’d called Squire a c--- for leaving.
"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."
(John Squire speaking to the NME, 26th April 1997)

There is a continuation of the Gnostic theme of previous Roses material. The circle that embraces Yin and Yang is the universal symbol for totality. In Sanskrit it is known as the mandala. In the Gnostic tradition too, God ("Love", in relation to ICC) is represented by the circle that has no circumference and whose centre is everywhere ("Love is a circle with no end"). In Jung’s psycho-spiritual formulation, the transformation of the psyche can only be achieved through the acknowledgement and integration of opposites. The dark and the light are equally necessary to each other ("I turned your darkness into light"). As the Taiji illustrates, 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. Evil arises from an imbalance of Yin and Yang according to the Daoist view. When we transgress the natural balance and rhythm of Nature, the flow of energy (Qi) is blocked and disharmony arises.

* The opening line can be interpreted in two ways: "Brother fire I got to verse with you" or "Brother've I got to verse with you."

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