The boys may share a love of The Smiths, The Clash, and The Jam, but in no way were the Monkeys ready to simply regurgitate the well-trodden Brit-rock path. Rather, they spent their school days listening to Roots Manuva, Braintax, and other stuff on Low-Life, not to mention Lyricist Lounge compilations and Rawkus Records cuts like Pharaoh Monch. Another unique influence was Mancunian poet John Cooper Clarke, who Alex is a huge recent fan of.

Hence the razor-sharp lyricism that fuels songs like "A Certain Romance," a witty observation of small-town life where there's only music so that there's new ringtones and where going out could sometimes mean having a pool cue wrapped around your head. Elsewhere, there were grim tales of girls who'd ended up on the streets ("She don't do major credit cards, I doubt she does receipts, sun goes down") and glorious swipes at the rock 'n' roll clones that arose on the back of the great garage rock boom of 2002 ("Yeah I'd like to tell you all my problems, you're not from New York City, you're from Rotherham, fake tales of San Francisco").