Apathy Sketchpad

I’d like to share some lyrics from a song, which I think really evoke some pretty deep feelings:

Should we act on a blame?
Or should we chase the moments away?
Should we live? Should we give?
Remember forever the guns and the feathers in time.

Because the line between wrong and right,
Is the width of a thread from a spider’s web.
The piano keys are black and white,
But they sound like a million colours in your mind.

Specifically, they evoke the feeling of not knowing what the hell Katie Melua is banging on about. It all sounds like nice, sentimental metaphor until you actually listen to the words and realise that it’s just bullshit carefully sculpted into the shape of emotion, like it was written by a very talented poet who didn’t have anything he particularly wanted to say. And it’s every single one of her songs. And it’s frustrating, because I basically quite like her music, but every time I hear it… look, here, from the same abum:

If this was a quiz on a TV show
And the prize was a guy who would love me so
Whatever they ask, the answer I know:
Hey, my reply, boy,
Is gimme a shy boy.

Is it wrong that it bothers me that that is not how quiz shows work? You can’t win the prize simply by asking for it every time someone asks you a question (with the exception of Deal or No Deal). To be honest, though, the bigger problem with Shy Boy is that it’s a whole song about how she likes shy boys but, being shy, they never ask her out. What year is this? Make the first move! That’s okay now. But don’t select someone on the basis of their shyness and then whine that they’re shy. That’s not reasonable. Well, unless… I’m kind of assuming that Katie Melua is not herself incredibly shy. I realise this is a generalisation purely on the basis that her job is singing to large groups of people.

My favourite ever Katie Melua lyric is at the end of Nine Million Bicycles:

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing.
That’s a fact.
It’s a thing we can’t deny,
Like the fact that I will love you till I die.
And there are nine million bicycles in Beijing.
And you know that I will love you till I die.

I love the random piece of trivia dropped into the middle of what ought to be a fairly emotional sentence. I can’t dislike the song, purely because at some point someone must have turned on the radio and heard that song for the first time but only caught the last four or five lines, and they’d just have got love and bicycles with no context. I think that could blow someone’s brain.

Also, I feel like Nine Million Bicycles would be a great song to do at a karaoke night, but with entirely spurious verses that you make up to fit the structure. You just need a ten- or eleven-syllable piece of trivia. It’s easy.

The tomato is technically a fruit. 
That’s a fact.
It’s a truth we can’t deny 
Like the fact that I will love you till I die. 

We’re fourteen billion light years from the edge, 
In real life.
I know the metre’s not as nice,
But don’t change facts to suit your rhythmic device.

I have seventy-seven Facebook friends
Including family,
and it makes me feel quite small 
That you’re the one I love the most of all

Alright, one of those was just pedantry. But that just shows how little thought was put into the original lyrics.

Bonus Katie Melua Jokes That Don’t Work Because She Is The Punchline And Not The Setup:

1. Destiny’s Child’s Survivor is a song about how Beyonce showed her ex that she could be successful without him by forging a glittering career as a bicycle saleswoman in Beijing.
2. I wish people would stop criticising the British Olympic team for mostly getting medals in cycling events at the 2008 games. Do you have any idea how many bicycles there are in Beijing?