“The reason for the album is that we go in and out of town in England very slowly these days – lots and lots of traffic jams – and, because I’m always writing in my head, I started to notice as I looked to the left in the traffic jams all the different couples each day that I would see, and I started to think, Are they man and wife, are they lovers, should they not be together? Each car has a story. That’s what gave me the idea for all of the songs. They’re all like mini film stories of two people while they’re in a car together.”Chris Rea (1133)

“I stayed in a motel, to do with my passion, which is motor racing – we always use these cheap motels near the circuit. And I saw this guy, sat at the bar, and I just knew his story without even talking to him. He started talking to the waitress and it was very much a “bartender, this drink’s on me” kind of feel. He was obviously a traveling salesman and now he’s just keeping going instead of having fantastic dreams. And so, she becomes the “Angel Of Love”.”Chris Rea (1133)

“‘Happy On The Road’ is a truck driver. And a funny thing happened with the truck driver. I’m in a traffic jam and he’s singing away with the window open, and this guy couldn’t be happier high up there in the truck cab. Yeah, there are some people that are actually ‘happy on the road’.”Chris Rea (1133)

“As in the same traffic jam, that’s what all the guys and girls are doing: They’re on their way into the city. We have a joke, and it nearly got into the song: The only way you can explain something to people, sometimes, is 12 percent. They get out of bed in the morning and they see 12 percent. They get in the bathroom, they have a shower, they see 12 percent. You can explain the whole world just with the phrase 12 percent. We’ve become obsessed with it in England, and we actually don’t do anything. We don’t walk, we don’t sit in forests and think this is a beautiful day. From my point of view, England is in a bad way in that respect. Everybody is just material, material, material. [What does the 12 percent represent? – Ed] Profit. It’s pure and simple. Why is this man phoning you? Because he’s looking for his 12 percent. Why is this man smiling and shaking? Watch your pocket, he’s after 12 percent.”Chris Rea (1133)

“We’d reached the point where we’d bought a house, I had a child, we were happy. We’d kept the wolf from the door and things were okay. I was in this place called Chisel Hill, which is in the Yorkshire Dales near a place called Whitby, and I remember being happy that day and wrote that song all in one quick go, like you do sometimes. And now when I listen to the lyrics it can be very, very emotional because we all get caught up in life and yet, whoever wrote that song back then, he must have been a really happy guy. Yeah, that song gets me.”Chris Rea (1133)

“With ‘Josephine,’ the song, which was a huge hit over in Europe, I’m always on the third floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in Dusseldorf in Germany and it’s raining. That’s where I am when I sing that song, every time. [You’re in that hotel, and you’re on the road, and your daughter was probably very young – Ed]. Yeah, and I was missing her. It was the third floor and it was pouring with rain. That’s how all the songs are with me.”Chris Rea (1133)

“That was Formentera, a little island off Ibiza in Spain. That’s where me and my wife became me and my wife. That’s what it’s about. Yeah, I was “between the eyes of love.” It’s a lovely island if ever you’re in Europe.”Chris Rea (1133)

“A little bit of self-experience with pressure. It’s about the way people carry a quiet burden. And nobody is aware of how unhappy that person is because they never show it and they’re very good at hiding it. And then, all of a sudden, you get a phone call saying something’s happened to somebody and everybody is shocked because they never knew he was feeling that way.”Chris Rea (1133)

“When I got very, very ill it changed my life. I lost my pancreas and I nearly died. Things were never going to be the same. I went down to eight stone and my poor wife had to bring me back. She said, “Why don’t you make a record imagining it would have been your first record and what you would have done if you’d had the chance to just do what you like and love?” And so, I made the album, which was then called Stony Road.”Chris Rea (1133)