The View from the Afternoon

"The View from the Afternoon"
2006 promotional European CD single
Song by Arctic Monkeys
from the album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Released	23 January 2006 (2006-01-23)
Recorded	September 2005
Genre	Indie rock garage rock post-punk revival
Length	3:38
Label	Domino
Songwriter(s)	Alex Turner Jamie Cook
Producer(s)	Jim Abbiss Alan Smyth
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not track listing
"The View from the Afternoon" "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" "Fake Tales of San Francisco" "Dancing Shoes" "You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights But You Were Staring Straight at Me" "Still Take You Home" "Riot Van" "Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured" "Mardy Bum" "Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But..." "When the Sun Goes Down" "From the Ritz to the Rubble" "A Certain Romance"

"The View from the Afternoon" is a song by Arctic Monkeys originally released as the opening track on the band's first album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not in January 2006. It was also the lead track on the Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? EP. This release had an accompanying video. Although never released as a single the song is a staple of live concerts by the band.

The themes of "The View from the Afternoon" are based around observations of behaviour on an excursion into local nightlife. The song opens with the lines "Anticipation has a habit to set you up/For disappointment in evening entertainment but". Vocalist Alex Turner comments on the expectation that an evening that will be enjoyable will likely lead to disappointment; the line could also serve a comment on the massive hype surrounding the album in the UK press before release and several critics and fans have suggested this was intentional by Turner. The song describes various scenes; a group of meretricious females who have rented a limousine for a fancy dress party; a gambler who has won and then lost the jackpot on a fruit machine; and "two-for-one" drinks promotions. The chorus describes a drunk club-goer sending romantic text messages ("verse and chapter sat in her inbox") on a Nokia mobile phone which is only interpreted by the receiver as evidence he has drunk a lot; Turner noting "you can pour your heart out but her reasoning will block all what you send her after nine o'clock". The lyrics, along with many on Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, criticise the culture of the nightlife described in the song, in a sarcastic and deriding tone.

Alex Turner said "This is one of the last songs written for the album. There's nothing clever, it's just about anticipating the evening, finding comfort in familiarity and the fact that you know you're bound to send a daft message or something before the sun comes up. I think I've stopped doing that now." The lyric "you can never beat the bandit, no" refers to the same fruit machine that the Reverend and the Makers sing about on the song Bandits. Both of them describe losing out to the fruit machine.