Sometimes misheard lyrics stick so long and rigidly that the mishearer ends up preferring their version than what’s officially being sung. When I first heard “Bone Bag” I thought Damon was singing about his cat called Shaking Bone Bag. At once I found this adorable, while I did worry about the poor kitty’s health a little. On subsequent listens I realised that Damon ain’t no Pete Doherty (even though The Libertines hadn’t formed yet at the time and Pete was still queuing outside HMV for Oasis releases and impressing MTV reporters), and he must have been singing something else. I’ve googled the words several times, but no website has given me a convincing alternative yet.
“Bone Bag” was recorded around the same time as “Oily Water” and “Resigned”, and shares those songs’ hazy production and introspective themes, while adding some Indian flavours in the percussion. Apparently Dave programmed those, went to the pub and returned to the studio to find the finished song. It remained unreleased until April 1993 when the band put it out there along with several other high quality b-sides to go with “For Tomorrow”. It fell off the radar almost immediately but resurfaced in September 1999 when it was played twice.
