"Animal Nitrate", a play on amyl nitrite, contained Anderson's most risqué lyrics to date: as their author concurred, "You know it's about violence and abuse and sex and drugs. It's actually quite a hardcore song." Anderson has since said that the first album was about "sex and depression in equal measure". All the latter-day lyrics for the first album were directly influenced by extremely personal and emotional experiences in Anderson's life. "So Young", featuring a piano bridge courtesy of Ed Buller, was about his girlfriend's overdose. Anderson says: "it deals with the knife-edge of being young." "The Next Life", which was Butler's first serious piano part, was a lament to Anderson's deceased mother, while "Breakdown" dealt with his schoolfriend's descent into extreme depression. "She's Not Dead", was a true story written about the joint suicide of Anderson's aunt and her black clandestine lover. On the song, Anderson states: "the ankle chain and stuff like that, is the kind of detail that can only come from truth, that can't be conjured up."