The other A-side, with a harmonica instead of the grin
Mick Quinn remembered a rainy day in his living room. Gaz Coombes turned up with a chord sequence, they went straight through it, and the sketch landed on a four-track. That was Time, track 11 of I Should Coco, and the second A-side of the single that would stop at number two. It does not race. Caught by the Fuzz and Mansize Rooster are the fast pub songs. Time is slower: a dragged blues, Gaz less cheeky, and a harmonica solo that the session credits give to Quinn.
The album sessions split in two. The first, paid for out of shifts at a Harvester, was six songs in five days at Sawmills in Cornwall, with producer Sam Williams already in the room. Parlophone’s budget then bought a longer stay. MusicBrainz logs Time between February and August 1994, John Cornfield engineering, Williams on keyboards, Quinn on bass and harmonica, Danny Goffey on drums, Gaz on guitar and vocal. On the 30th anniversary Coombes told The Independent that the further they got into the studio stash of weed, the more psychedelic the record went. Time and the six-minute Sofa (Of My Lethargy) are where you hear it. Danny has said the first eight or nine songs run at about 150 miles an hour. These two are where the tempo drops and the Beatles and Kinks listening is allowed to show.
As a single, Time did not get the bicycles. Alright did. Dom and Nic still shot a clip, later posted by the band in HD, but the chart story was the double A-side. Released 3 July 1995 on Parlophone, Alright/Time entered the Official Singles Chart at number two on 15 July and spent ten weeks on it. The disc also carried Condition, their cover of Mickey Newbury’s Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), a hit for Kenny Rogers, and Je suis votre papa sucre, a short instrumental. I Should Coco itself had arrived on 15 May 1995 and gone to number one. Time was already on it, waiting, while Alright became the song strangers recognised in the street.
I remember writing that song in my living room on a rainy day and Gaz sort of turned up with this chord sequence and we just went straight through it and just did it on 4 track.
(Mick Quinn, BBC Radio London, 2005)
The pairing matters. Parlophone could have buried Time. Instead it sat level with the hit, which is why people remember the single as a double A-side. Listeners who only knew the Portmeirion clip got a second song that does not smile on cue. The harmonica marks the change. Quinn steps out of the bass role for a few bars, Williams’s keyboard holds a darker part, and Goffey’s drums stop trying to outrun the vocal. It is still Supergrass, still spare, and it is the first song on the debut that lets the day move slowly.
On the anniversary tours the fast songs still open the night. Time is the proof that the second Sawmills visit was not an accident. The weed line is funny because the tape agrees with it: after the fast songs, a blues, then Sofa. Alright later left the band as teenagers on bikes. Time had been written in an Oxford living room, in the rain, before that single reached number two.
Rita | 11 October 2026
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Kinda basic of me but Time is still top 5 Supergrass for me. I told my coworker and they shrugged. Their loss. Replay button abused.
Ben | 12 October 2026
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Cool. Now I want the deep cuts around Time too. Sharing this in the group chat. Expect chaos.
Anne | 13 October 2026
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short take: the groove on Time still feels unfair. Sharing this in the group chat. Expect chaos.
Sara | 14 October 2026
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Heard Time a thousand times. This reminded me why it stuck. Good piece.
Diego | 14 October 2026
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I never knew that detail about the session. Changes how I hear the intro. Fight me.
Amy | 15 October 2026
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Cool. Now I want the deep cuts around Time too. Might be recency bias but I do not care today. Just saying.
Maya | 15 October 2026
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ok but who else puts Time on at 1am and feels seen?
Rosa | 16 October 2026
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First time I heard Time was on a burned CD. Still got the scratches in my head.