🦋 22 years ago today, Darius released his single "Incredible (What I Meant To Say)", which reached No.9 on the UK Official Singles Chart. The song, co-written and produced by The Matrix, was Darius' third consecutive Top Ten single and featured on his platinum-selling debut album "Dive In". The Matrix, composed of Lauren Christy, Scott Spock, and Graham Edwards, also worked with Avril Lavigne, earning seven Grammy nominations for their collaborations on her album "Let Go".
Talking to The Sun at the time of the release Darius explained:
"The new single Incredible is another upbeat one, last year was an incredible year for me and the support I've had from people to allow me to be in this position is also incredible. That is where the title of the song has come from, but then the song isn't even about any of that."
He told Top Of The Pops Online "'Incredible' was spawned from an event. It's basically when you say something and afterwards realise that that's not what you meant to say. It was spawned from breaking up with a girlfriend and when she asked me "do you love me?". To make it easy on the break up I said "no". We often hurt those who are closest to us the most. The truth was that I did love her and I had to say it to make it easier on the situation. I was lucky though to have more of an upbeat production than the spawn of the song. We went out to LA to record it with Avril Lavigne's producers, the Matrix, then came back to shoot the video in Barcelona."
The video was shot over two days at the Estacion De Francia train station in Barcelona, Spain.
In the video Darius has an argument with his girlfriend, played by Kate Groombridge, he tries to find her to apologise, but the train he thinks she is on leaves before he can say sorry. He then exits the train station down-hearted, just missing his girlfriend, who has returned to find him.
Darius said "The video is great, we shot it in the hall of the main train station. They hired out the whole thing – 10 platforms, 3 trains, 200 extras and one of MTV's most respected video directors. He also did Britney Spears' Hit Me Baby, One More Time, Oasis' Wonderwall and he's worked with U2 and Nickelback.
He took the video in a different direction to my previous ones, they were more about me as a performer and this one was more about the song and me as a person. It felt more like I was acting rather than just being up on a stage playing my guitar. It is a nice step forward and a little bit to the side.
And I got to appear with a very beautiful Gossard Wonderbra girl, but you'll have to watch the video to see what we got up to!"
Darius debuted the song live in Glasgow on the Smash Hits tour in November 2002. He went on to perform it live on TV on Top Of The Pops, Today With Des And Mel and Saturday Night Takeaway with Ant & Dec amongst other shows.
The song was also included on the set list of his 'Dive In' tour and Darius performed it at many shows across the UK and Ireland including at Abbey Road Studios and various Live and Loud and Party In The Park events.
The single was released as a 2 CD set and on cassette. The release included two new songs written by Darius, 'Don't Forget To Breathe' and 'Fragile' and a cover of 'Pretty Flamingo' which he had recorded live for the charity War Child.
