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Wide Open Space (song)

"Wide Open Space"
Wide Open Space CD1 front.jpg
Single by Mansun
from the album Attack of the Grey Lantern
Released 25 November 1996
Format 7" single, CD
Recorded Parr Street Studio, 1996
Genre Alternative rock, Britpop
Length 4:31
Label Parlophone
Songwriter(s) Paul Draper
Producer(s) Paul Draper
Mansun singles chronology
"Stripper Vicar"
(1996)
"Wide Open Space"
(1996)
"She Makes My Nose Bleed"
(1997)
"Stripper Vicar"
(1996)
"Wide Open Space"
(1996)
"She Makes My Nose Bleed"
(1997)

"Wide Open Space" is a song by Chester rock band Mansun, released as a single on 25 November 1996. The song was the lead track of Four EP. The single's success led to alternate versions appearing on four of the next five Mansun singles. These versions were one live, one acoustic, and two remixes, the first and most popular by Perfecto and a NRG version by The Trouser Enthusiasts. A completely different version credited to longtime engineer Mike Hunter was included as a hidden bonus track on their compilation Kleptomania. The song also appears on The Sound of Gran Turismo, a soundtrack album based on Gran Turismo.

"Wide Open Space" was not the group's most successful single in terms of sales or UK chart position – reaching number 15 in the UK Singles Chart – but propelled the group's career and is their best-known song. It was also the only single that gained significant exposure in the US, reaching number 25 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1997. Paul Draper later wrote that he was the sole writer and performer of the song. In the liner notes of Legacy: Best Of, Draper explained having recorded the entire song sans the vocals six months before he wrote the lyrics.

Two videos were filmed to promote the single. The first, directed by Paul Cunningham, features the band playing in a small dilapidated room while Martino Lazzeri (Joe Williams from BBC's Grange Hill) walks around a city, alienated and paranoid, amid vampiresque overtones. A second, simpler video was recorded for the US market, directed by Nigel Dick.

"Wide Open Space" became a dance anthem after being remixed by DJ and producer Paul Oakenfold (under the production alias Perfecto). This remix was included on Oakenfold's compilation Resident: Two Years of Oakenfold at Cream, sealing its status as one of the most played songs at major UK nightclub Cream, as well as in nightclubs around the world, over the 1997–1999 period.


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