Recorded: Manorside, Abbey Wood

4 November 1999 14, 15, 24, April / 8, 20 May / 25, 26 July / 7 August / 4, 12, 13, 17 October 2000

Mark Tingley:

Lead vocal, Harmony vocal, Acoustic guitars, Bass, Keyboards

Helen Smith: Violins (4), Recorder

"Apple" came to me one night as I was drifting off to sleep. I got the idea down using a camcorder mic knowing that in all likelihood I'd forget about it the next morning! This was the late '95 "wilber walks" period, a fertile time for new ideas. It must have occurred to me at some point that "Apple" had to appear on an album called "Fruitbowl". I began looking for fruity references everywhere. That's how "Gooseberry" ended up in the running order too!

I had the song finished for ages but when I got down to nailing the recording, I was getting out of breath with having too many words to sing! I rewrote some better ones instead!

It seemed the two fruitiest songs of the album were the two biggest bastards to record ! Helen began hating me for being so perfectionist with the violins. Now I'd gone digital, I had a machine with a storage capacity for 24 tracks, I got crazy recording multiple takes of everything. When it came to choosing the right take, I went into denial !

Maybe I made life difficult for myself, but I believe the indecision and perfectionism that started creeping in, aligned with a fear of sounding amateurish, and working alone with no one to bounce ideas off, began affecting my judgement.