About
Credited to Sound 5 featuring Tipsy McStagger — a pseudonym used by Robbie Williams — Surface Noise appeared on the electronic duo’s 2000 album No Illicit Dancing. Sound 5 were Kelvin Andrews and Danny Spencer, the Stoke-on-Trent producers who had worked with Williams on Rock DJ and later on Rudebox and Reality Killed the Video Star. The track’s dense, trip-hop-inspired textures and surreal spoken-word passages positioned it far from mainstream pop, showing Williams’ willingness to experiment beyond his chart persona.
Built around looping pianos, breakbeats and disorienting vocal filters, the song explores alienation, fame and sensory overload — themes that ran through much of Williams’ early-2000s output. His distorted voice drifts between singing and narration, creating a darkly hypnotic effect that mirrors the psychedelic dance-floor aesthetic of the period. The track closes unexpectedly with a child singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” an eerie juxtaposition that heightens its uneasy tone.
Kelvin and Danny were making really interesting, twisted dance records. I just turned up and talked nonsense into a microphone. They made it sound amazing.Robbie Williams
While the collaboration was released quietly, Surface Noise illustrates the experimental freedom Williams found with Soul Mekanik (as Andrews and Spencer were later known). Its blend of electronica, humour and unease prefigured the genre-bending spirit of Rudebox six years later. Though hardly a typical Williams track, it remains a fascinating glimpse into his more avant-garde side — playful, strange and unmistakably self-aware.
Lyrics
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
In the fields
They say there is no smoke without the fire
But I'm burning up and I'm no higher
So what's the use of me making a fuss of it all
What really gets me down is
You say it doesn't matter anymore
Sometimes
Happiness is surface noise
Kissing sweetly in the fields
And kissing us to sleep again
The poison here is cram plated
Nice and clean so the it is never generated
I just get lost in the sound from the back of the car
In a traffic jam it doesn't matter if we don't get too far
Sometimes
Happiness is surface noise
Kissing sweetly in the fields
And kissing us to sleep again
6 o'clock on Radio's 1 2
My name’s Tom Brown
This is the Top20
It’s compiled with the BBC
By the British marketing search bureau
Five, four, three, two, one
We have looked on…
I like to heavenly in my bed
And play daft in a dreamy limo bed
I never want to go by like a face on a bus
Rushing my head of in rush hour on propos
I don't want much
Sometimes
Happiness is surface noise
Kissing sweetly in the fields
And kissing us to sleep again
Oh yeah sometimes
Happiness is surface noise
Kissing sweetly in the fields
And kissing us to sleep again
Only sometimes
Happiness is surface noise
Kissing sweetly in the fields
And kissing us to sleep again
Oh yeah sometimes
Happiness is surface noise
Kissing sweetly in the fields
And kissing us to sleep again
Oh yeah sometimes
Happiness is surface noise
Kissing sweetly in the fields
And kissing us to sleep again
Credits
-
Vocalist
Robbie Williams -
Songwriter
Kelvin Andrews, Danny Spencer