Even as much of the rest of their Britpop peers were reeling a bit at the turn of the millennium, the Scottish lads in Travis were just hitting their stride. Their 2001 album The Invisible Band found them at a peak, creatively and commercially. “The Cage,” an achingly pretty and sad slow song, represents one of the album’s unmistakable highlights.
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Not a bad result at all, considering the intense pressure on the band due to expectations and an unforgiving schedule. Here’s how Travis created “The Cage” in the midst of all that.
Invisible and Undeniable
The album title The Invisible Band might have seemed a bit odd when you consider the popularity of Travis following their 1999 record The Man Who. The band is referencing the notion that they didn’t quite possess the bold personalities of their peers in bands like Oasis, Blur, and Pulp. Instead, the quartet was somewhat unassuming and humble by comparison.
The Man Who, their second album, shot them into rarefied air in the UK at a time when some of those other acts were stumbling. The band toured the record incessantly to solidify their success. And then they made the somewhat insane decision to begin recording their follow-up album in Los Angeles pretty much the day after that tour ended.
Luckily, Travis frontman and songwriter Fran Healy had already penned a few songs the band had worked up while on tour. Unluckily, when they presented them to producer Nigel Godrich, he wasn’t all that impressed, causing a crisis of confidence at the worst possible time.
Eventually, they stuck up for their work, and Godrich, who was fatigued from working on Radiohead’s Kid A album right before arriving for duty with Travis, started to lighten up. In the case of “The Cage,” Healy wrote it as part of a songwriting challenge with his friend Cinjun Tate of the band Remy Zero.
The Invisible Band exceeded all expectations when released in 2001, hitting the top spot in the UK charts immediately. While it didn’t quite bust out in America like the band hoped it would, the album was still a towering achievement. It’s a record full of shimmeringly pretty pop songs, and “The Cage” might just shine brightest of them all.
The Meaning Behind “The Cage”
“The Cage” begins in benign fashion, a guy speaking to his lover with comfort and consolation in the first verse. I love you more than I, he says, only he doesn’t get to finish his thought. Or maybe he’s saying that she’s caused him to shed his egotism. In any case, he’s interrupted by the chorus: But then this bird just flew away / She was never meant to stay.
The suddenness of it all is almost shocking, but the new reality has set in by the time he begins the second verse. You broke your word, dear, now that’s a lie, Healy admonishes. We had a deal that you would try. He suggests a decision must be made on how to proceed: High time we drew the line.
By the final verse, he holds out no hope, and his rancor rises to the surface: You broke my soul, dear, you stole the plot. His sorry state is laid bare: There’s nothing left here, ’cause you took the lot / An empty cage is all I got. But the chorus, with its melody so lovely and delicate, implies a resignation rising in him that this turn of events was always meant to be: To keep her caged would just delay the spring.
Bathed in Godrich’s fluttery production touches, “The Cage” exemplifies the kind of gentle beauty found all over this masterpiece of an album. Travis might have felt invisible at times, but they were certainly audible, and quite magical as well.
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