Sunshine on Catford
by Kae Tempest featuring Neil Tennant
Writers - Tempest/Smith
First released - 2025
Original album - Self Titled (Tempest)
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - (none)
Neil supplies sung vocals to this track from the 2025 album Self Titled by U.K. poet/spoken word artist Kae Tempest, who has described the album as "a love letter, a conversation, with [my] younger self and deals head-on with coming out as trans." The fourth track, "Sunshine on Catford," is an unabashed love song in which Tempest recites verse about their lover and how much strength and support they derive from love. Neil chimes in on the refrains, his singing contrasting both sharply and sweetly with Tempest's spoken poetry. He twice sings—
I never knew how little I knew until I met you
I never knew how perfect things were I was until I was perfect for you
I never knew how little I knew until I met you
I never knew how perfect I was until I was perfect for you
—the second time joined rather subtly by Tempest themself.
Interestingly, shortly before the first of these Tennant-sung refrains, Tempest refers to being on a bus with their lover's head on their shoulder, words that echo Neil's own line from "Liberation" more than 30 years before, "You were sleeping on my shoulder." It makes me wonder whether it might have inspired this collaboration in the first place.
And, in case you're wondering, Catford is a district in southeastern London.
List cross-references
- This song doesn't appear in any of my lists.
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