2022
Roland, Billboard (25.02.2022): “That song is about freedom, obviously — OUR freedom of expression — and all of a sudden we realized what we’d been missing."
Spin Magazine (25.02.2022): Int.: “No Small Thing” really introduces us to this whole Tipping Point world, and yet, there’s no doubt about it, it’s a folk song. It’s a folk/country song, I would say. How did the song come about? RO: It’s a very important song inasmuch as Curt and I had been working for many years with these other songwriters. It was an idea that the management had to drag us, kicking and screaming into the modern music world. I think we did okay because we know how to write pop songs, but as I said to you earlier, we were missing the heart and soul. Also, we were at loggerheads because the whole process of working in a team of songwriters has left Curt behind a little bit, because he tends to keep his opinions to himself until he’s asked, in that situation. Secretly and privately he was hating the whole thing, and it took a while for him to actually admit it, but he did. It was my task, in a sense, to reconnect with him. Do you know what I mean? Int.: Yes. RO: We’ve been on two tough tours in 2019, and as usual, tend to fall out and go our separate ways after the tour that’s quite stressful, and like many stresses in life, you tend to blame your partner. I just said, “Look–” while we were discussing what we felt good about, and we were happy to proceed with regarding the songs, I said, “Let’s get together and see what happens.” I felt pretty confident about it because, at that point in time, I knew that it was absolutely vital that we become one mind and there’s only one way of doing that and that’s being alone. The first day I went round to Curt’s house was with acoustic guitar and we sat there, and this is the first time we’ve done that probably since the early ’80s, and he started strumming this little figure. Then it started from there. We mucked about with that for a while and took it back to England and then the “freedom is no small thing” came and it was pretty obvious. Obviously, the narrator in this song, he’s really talking about freedom of expression, which is what we hadn’t really allowed ourselves to enjoy. We hadn’t indulged ourselves in any way. This was at the point where our previous manager, who had coerced us into writing with all these people, he was now suddenly out of the picture. There was only me and Curt left. It was only the two of us, so no interference. We put our heads together and then the magic happened. I think it was that track where Curt’s enthusiasm was suddenly back to 100% because we were getting somewhere, he felt we were making more of a statement. We were just becoming artistic again and not just commercial. Do you see what I’m saying? “Freedom is no small thing.”
