The Blower's Daughter

Rice wrote and performed it, with Hannigan on co-vocal and Long on cello; it is in E major at 66 BPM and runs 4:44. It was released in Ireland on September 21, 2001, reaching 38, and re-released in Europe in 2004, entering the UK singles chart on December 25, 2004 and peaking at 27, with a BPI Gold certification and a peak of 15 on the US Hot Rock and Alternative Songs chart. It was recorded on the eight-track cassette recorder Arnold gave him, with guitar scrapes and vocal scratches kept; Fitzsimons took a flat fee of about 100 euro per song. Rice has not explained its meaning: one story says the blower's daughter was his clarinet teacher's daughter, another is a fictional call-centre story he told at concerts, blower being British slang for the telephone.

It opens and closes Mike Nichols's Closer (2004) and appears in The L Word. Rice played it solo on BBC2's Later... with Jools Holland in 2002. Setlist.fm counts 360 plays, second only to "Volcano". Covers include Taylor Henderson on X Factor Australia in 2013, Matt McAndrew on The Voice US on December 1, 2014 (Hot 100 40), Simone's "Então Me Diz" (2005), Kalimba and Sakis Rouvas (2006), and Ana Carolina and Seu Jorge's "É Isso Aí" (released November 28, 2005), which topped Brazil's chart in 2006. There are two official videos, one on a beach with Hannigan and one using scenes from Closer, and we cannot say whether our upload is the studio version.