WE SHOULD BE OUTSIDE
17th September 2017
In June 2016, Mikey and his fellow MidKent College music student and former Bower Grove School classmate in Year Five, Mitchell Ripley, went to Lower Lines Park (located next to the MidKent College Medway campus where they studied) on their lunch break, where they wrote and recorded an acoustic demo of "We Should Be Outside". The summary folk-pop campfire-esque song jokingly mocks and protests against the school and college education system for imprisoning students on summer days, as a way of expressing the stress and boredom Mitchell and Mikey felt that day at college when they wrote the song. Despite not being re-recorded for Mikey's 2019 album Dreamer, the song does have a similar lyrical narrative to "Home" of expressing one's desires of self-comfort and escapism.
In wake of the COVID-19 national lockdown in 2020, where schools, colleges and universities saw a public close and students began to study from home, Mikey, who was studying at The Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) at the time, reflected on "We Should Be Outside", stating: "Funny to think that it could have been written today as a Quarantine anthem or a lockdown protest song, because it definitely fits the bill". He also admitted that his views on education had changed: "Now three years later, I find myself cooped up at home forced to do coursework through digital means; suddenly being at school or college, or in my current case, university, doesn't seem so bad after all".
LYRICS
Written by Michael Mikey Brennan and Mitchell Ripley
I'm stuck in doors working
For hours and hours on end
It's a beautiful day outside
And I should be spending it with my friends
But I'm stuck in doors
Stuck in doors
Get me out
Get me out of here
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some fun
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some
Having some fun
I'm stuck in here
I don't wanna be here, this place is a mess
I wanna be outside, I couldn't ask for less
I wanna go out out out
I wanna be free free free
Outside outside
I have no doubt that's where I should be
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some fun
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some
Having some fun
It's a beautiful day
It's a beautiful day
I wanna go out out out
I wanna go out out out
I wanna go to the beach
I wanna go to the park
I wanna play golf
Wanna play football
Wanna play basketball
Wanna go swimming
Wanna go bowling
Wanna go to the cinema
I wanna be anywhere but here
Oh
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some fun
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some fun
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some fun
We should be outside enjoying the sunshine
We should be outside having a good time
We should be outside enjoying the sun
We should be outside having some
Fun
It's a beautiful day
Baby, baby, it's a beautiful day-ay-ay
It's a beautiful day
It's a beautiful day