Bedshaped

There are different kinds of wonderfulness, in songs. Some songs are feel good songs, songs that make you play your desk like a drumkit and forget all your worries for a few blissful minutes. Some songs are stirring songs, that inspire righteous ire or bloody revolution. Only a few songs that I know have the ability to give me goosebumps on a regular basis, though, and this is one of them.

Bedshaped is English piano-rock band Keane's third single from their debut album Hopes and Fears. It had an excellent stop-motion animated video, directed by Corin Hardy. This is the first track that's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me - Keane are quite definitely soft-rock, middle class and supremely inoffensive, three things I try to distance myself from; this song really gets me, though. Somehow Tim Rice-Oxley manages to twist his piano into drawing out shuddering, beautiful notes in the bridge that sound, to my ear, almost like whale song.

Keane come under a fair amount of criticism in the British press, mainly focusing on them being 'wet'. They're not my favourite band by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, I only really enjoy two of their songs. But any band that's capable of turning out something like this gets the benefit of the doubt in my mind.

Bedshaped

Many's the time I ran with you down
The rainy roads of our old town
Many the lives we lived in each day
And buried all together
Don't laugh at me
Don't look away

You'll follow me back
With the sun in your eyes
And on your own
Bedshaped and legs of stone
You'll knock on my door
And up we'll go
In white light
I don't think so
But what do I know?
What do I know?
I know

I know you think I'm holding you down
And I've fallen by the wayside now
And I don't understand the same things as you
But I do

Don't laugh at me
Don't look away

You'll follow me back
With the sun in your eyes
And on your own
Bedshaped, and legs of stone
You'll knock on my door
And up we'll go
In white light
I don't think so
But what do I know?
What do I know?
I know

Oh, and up we'll go
In white light
I don't think so
But what do I know?
What do I know?
I know

Bedshaped