Protection

Massive Attack wanted to move away from the Motown reggae of their first album. Tracey Thorn received a backing track on cassette in the second half of 1993, with no title, melody or lyrics. She let it settle in and wrote the words in a single sitting. The lyric tells a story friends had told her a few nights earlier and reflects her protective feelings toward her Everything but the Girl bandmate Ben Watt after a serious illness. The beat is driven by a hi-hat and bass figure and a wah-wah guitar chord sampled from James Brown's The Payback.

Single and video

Released as a single on 9 January 1995, it reached number 14 in the UK and number 27 in New Zealand. Michel Gondry's video is a single seven-minute take in which the camera moves through an apartment building and its tenants. It won Video of the Year at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards. Del Naja told The Guardian in 2010 that it was by far the most agonising shoot, with about 15 takes spent holding himself against a slanting wall in freezing Paris weather.