Tag Archives: 2014

Song Analysis #37: Kaiser Chiefs – Meanwhile Up in Heaven

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Title: ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’
Where to find it: ‘Education, Education, Education, and War’ (2014, Caroline International)
Performed by: Kaiser Chiefs
Words by: not sure actually – guess that’s a question I’ll need to ask if/when I interview them!

I’ve written a couple pieces on There Goes the Fear on the Kaiser Chiefs (archive this way) since last December about the possible negative effects of founding member and primary band songwriter Nick Hodgson. To the delight (and relief) of Kaiser fans, the new album released this year sans Hodgson, ‘Education, Education, Education, and War’ is a good one. While it might not reach the same heights as ‘Employment’ or ‘Yours Truly, Angry Mob’ of the band’s earlier days, the musical landscape has changed in the last 10 years since they started releasing LPs as a band, so you don’t neither can expect the same formula to work. What I find especially wonderful about the new release is that it is showing the band’s evolution post-Hodgson, from their previous scrappier form to a more polished, dare I say it Coldplay / Keane-esque sensibility that will no doubt increase their reach beyond the indie kids and overall will serve them well to keep them in the game for many years to come.

Two of the standout tracks on ‘Education…’ are numbers in this vein, ‘Coming Home’ (whose intro initially reminded me of Simply Red’s ‘Stars’) and the exemplary ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’. We were never sent the album, so the first listen I had of the latter track was when it was played on BBC 6music. I honestly didn’t think it was the Kaiser Chiefs upon hearing it. What’s particularly interesting is that the verses are kind of biting and in a minor key, but then when the chorus comes in, the whole song opens up, as one might expect a song titled ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’: it’s like when you’re at a music festival and it’s been raining, and then God bestows his blessing on everyone and as described by everyone, “the heavens opened up”.

Live, Ricky Wilson is no shrinking violet. He’s anything but and very in your face. That’s just part of the fun of the Kaiser Chiefs live show. When I saw the Kaiser Chiefs for the first time 2 years at SXSW 2012, I was impressed by his intensity and charisma even at an afternoon show in the middle of a cute little courtyard in Austin. However, with the band evolution we’re witnessing, songs like ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’ came across last week at the 9:30 Club as truly beautiful and uplifting. Frankly, I’m tearing up just thinking about it and I’m near tears every time I play it.

First, the words:

Verse 1
Picture yourself by a rocket
Picture yourself in a glittering silver suit
Picture yourself getting on it
Saluting the news crews, you’re the new recruit

Verse 2
Do you remember the numbers
hung on the door of the house where you grew up?
Do you remember the colours
tied round the handles of last year’s FA Cup?

Chorus
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Are ready to

Verse 3
Guided by love and a flashlight
Led by consuming desire for a good idea
Lighting the clock on the dashboard
It’s not worked 10 years, but I know that it’s still there

Chorus
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Are ready to

Bridge
Your mind is the key, it is the key that sets you free
Your mind is the key, it is the key that sets you free

Chorus
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Are ready to…

Now, the analysis:

The first verse of the song is pretty straightforward. It’s describing an astronaut (“by a rocket” and “in a glittering suit”, part of the military “saluting the news crews”) who is about to go into space. He’s getting loads of attention, and as he should: he’s a big deal. This is a positive moment.

Yet in the second verse, we are all brought down to earth, literally, as Wilson asks him about if he remembers the number of his house (basic knowledge about oneself) and the colours of the scarves that are tied round last year’s FA Cup (basic knowledge about football for any man who likes footy). Why is Wilson asking these things? Presumably because the said astronaut may not return to Earth.

What’s that’s giving me the most question in ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’ are the ‘they’ and ‘them’ as referred to the chorus. “They’re waiting for you” suggests the folks beyond the pearly gates who have successfully made it to Heaven. You see this in the promo video, in the form of wounded soldiers and nurses looking like one of the dream sequences in an episode of M.A.S.H. (see the end of this post), but I think this is also indicating people you love are looking down on you and waiting for you to make that final leap into the next part of your life, when the time comes. However, have a look at the ‘them’ in “And if you believe them, you will see that when you / are ready to”: is he referring to believing that there’s a Heaven and an afterlife? Or that the astronaut should be believing the people who are putting him in the rocket – the scientists on the ground – that he’s going to come through this alive, that will he will return to Earth safe and sound?

The third verse goes even more ambiguous. The lines “Guided by love and a flashlight / Led by consuming desire for a good idea” sounds to me like the astronaut’s earliest years, when you’re a little kid and all your dreams and wishes are innocent. While “Lighting the clock on the dashboard” refers to the present, when the astronaut is revving up his spaceship, “It’s not worked 10 years, but I know that it’s still there” seems to point to the fact that the machine is not reliable, and I’m guessing “I know that it’s still there” means the goal, the dream that he had as a child is still alive, well, and active in his thoughts today.

And then we come to the bridge, which I believe is the key (no pun intended) to the whole song. I’ll never forget the moment when Ricky Wilson leaned on the monitor in front of us and belted out the last “sets you free…” I was speechless. It was amazing. I hope it reminded everyone that he’s a very good singer! Further, the way he sings it and just how much lift the notes have emphasises the importance of these words: “Your mind is the key, it is the key that sets you free.”

Whatever is going on the head of the astronaut – or any of the Kaiser Chiefs’ devoted fans more likely was their intention? – it’s what is in your head that is most important. I can’t tell if the whole song is a commentary on mental illness, but maybe the whole astronaut thing is supposed to represent a delusion of grandeur? Either way, I like the song’s message that it’s about you. You and your mind. You and what you’re thinking up there. The idea of astronauts flying around space was always on my mind as a child; it’s kind of a given if your father works for NASA. My father’s wide-eyed wonderment about what was possible with space travel was never tempered, even after the Challenger disaster. He always said we had to keep pushing the envelope, because whether it was space science or my later chosen major of biology, that was how discoveries were made. By taking a chance, by risking it all.

In school, lots of my classmates would say they wanted to be an astronaut when they grew up, but for some reason, that was never an aspiration of mine. The thought of being launched up into the heavens with the possibility of never returning was a terrifying thought. I don’t think this Kaiser Chiefs song is saying that everyone’s dreams are as fantastic as becoming an astronaut and going into space. (Initially, I assumed it was a very morbid song, talking about people welcoming someone who was about to die and enter into the afterlife. But that seems to make no sense whatsoever in the inspiring way Wilson sings the bridge.) Instead, what I think it’s trying to say is we all have had or are in situations that in the moment are terrible and scary but one day it will all become clear in your mind, and you have to trust that the day will come.

This all makes me think about the scary and often frustrating time in all of our lives when we make the transition between being a child and being an adult. When you’re a child, nothing much matters except playing with your friends and having fun. There are no real responsibilities. And then whoosh, we’re thrown into adult life when we’re responsible for ourselves and if we get married and have children, you’re suddenly responsible for other living human beings. Even if you don’t believe that there is life after death, I find the greatest beauty that lies in ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’ is knowing that we’re alive and even if you find yourself today in mental anguish or emotional turmoil, you can trust that the heavens will open up one day and the sun will shine again. And getting there is a wonderful, wonderful moment.

Lastly, the song, in promo form, starring the band and a motley crew of what I can only assume are the dear departed, frolicking around a carnival ground. Ricky Wilson is scarred and bleeding from his mouth, and I’m wondering if we’re supposed to think that he and his bandmates are dead?

Song Analysis #35: Maximo Park – Lydia, the Ink Will Never Dry

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Title: ‘Lydia, the Ink Will Never Dry’
Where to find it: ‘Too Much Information’ (2014, Daylighting /Co-Op / PIAS)
Performed by: Maximo Park
Words by: presumably Paul Smith

I’d waited 6 long years to see Newcastle band Maximo Park. I’d missed them 3 times previous: their 2008 American tour got cancelled; I couldn’t get in their Great Escape festival appearance in May 2012 at Brighton Dome; and the only other time I had known of them playing DC, I had the unfortunate luck of being in California for work and had to have one of the other writers in town cover it. Thankfully, they returned to our city on the 20th of May, they were amazing, I got to meet the band, and I also got to interview their drummer Tom for this ace feature.

‘Too Much Information’, their fifth album, is their most ambitious yet. There are still some songs on there that I don’t relate to and skip over when I’m listening to the album, but the dancey ‘Brain Cells’ and the reflective ‘Leave This Island’ are superb (I’m pretty sure the latter will be one of my favourite tracks of 2014). This one too is just superbly haunting. I’ve listened to it so many times, I think I’ve figured this one out, though other ideas keep swimming in my head on what else it could be about. And this is really good considering lyrically it’s a short song and repetitive. Just goes to show how great the songwriting is!

First, the words:

Verse 1
Near the Palace Hotel
Where you used to dwell
Engraved against your wishes
One of your greatest misses

You hope the ink will never dry
You’re fooling yourself
You feel set up
You’re telling yourself
You don’t believe in luck

Verse 2
On Princess Street
Where we used to meet
We knew not where we’re treading
Or how the dye will spread in
You hope the ink will never dry

You’re fooling yourself
You been set up
You’re telling yourself
You’ve done enough

Chorus
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me

Instrumental bridge / guitar solo

Final chorus / outro
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
I don’t know about you
but it feels good to me

Now, the analysis:

Instrumentally, the first thing about this song that will strike you is the Johnny Marr-esque guitars. I don’t know what to say if this isn’t a song written to thank the memory of the Smiths. Further, after having spent some time there last month myself, mentions of the Palace Hotel and Princess Street seem to indicate the song is set in Manchester.

Before I saw the lyric video the band released to go with the song, as a writer, I just assumed they were talking about a piece of writing that wasn’t complete or a situation with words, such as a relationship, that was left unfinished. Then you get the video (see bottom of this post) and the act of tattooing gives the word ‘ink’ an entirely different meaning. Hmm, okay.

I started to think about tattoos in history that have been “engraved against” someone’s “wishes”. Steers that are branded by their owner’s telltale marks; Holocaust victims with the numbers burned into their skin. The latter is why I’d never get a tattoo personally: why would you want to mark yourself voluntarily when people in our past history have been forced against their will to have these marked that they are ‘owned’, someone else’s ‘property’, or not a human being? These are very strong words in the song, which made me change my original idea of this being just a fluff piece about a relationship gone sour to one something far more creepy.

I’ve decided that I don’t think Paul Smith literally meant a tattoo but something that is mentally burned into someone’s life. To be fair, if you consider that verbal abuse can be as bad or worse than physical abuse, the thought of feeling like you don’t measure up can be pretty damaging to someone’s psyche, and this is the exact feeling I get in this song. There’s a mention of Princess Street being “where we used to meet”: Princess Street is one of the main thoroughfares of the city centre and the choice of using the action of meeting made me think one thing: this woman is a prostitute. She “used to dwell” in the Palace Hotel. Think about it, what kind of person tends to choose to live in a hotel? Someone who is an itinerant, someone who doesn’t want people to know what he/she is doing.

Why do I think this? The chorus isn’t gleefully sung – thankfully – and just insistent. “Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?” Something is difficult for her to get past. I just get the vibe that the voice of the song is one of her regular customers, having come into the city for his ‘usual’. He sees no problem with the transaction in a literal sense: “I don’t know about you, but it feels good to me.” To his credit, he recognises initially there was a question of whether what they were doing was right: “We knew not where we’re treading / Or how the dye will spread in”.

The man also recognises the woman’s own misgivings: “You’re fooling yourself / You feel set up” and “one of your greatest misses” (she knows she’s made a mistake with choices in her life). But what I find the most haunting is the repetition throughout the song “you hope the ink will never dry”: she doesn’t want this less than savoury lifestyle of hers to be the be-all and end-all of her life. To use the engraving metaphor again, she doesn’t want this to be her legacy, what will be printed on her tombstone. This is the part of the song that impresses me the most. I don’t know if men can relate to what ‘Lydia’ is going through, as I think us women have entirely different life struggles, because society dictates that we’re ‘supposed’ to be good wives, good mothers, good caregivers, although old societal norms that were present when my parents were young have now changed.

Girls no longer have to get married or have partners at all. This is a good thing in my eyes, as I am from a culture that still has to get with this program. Yet something that has become exceedingly, painfully clear after the Isla Vista massacre last month is that some men still look at women as objects, things to be ‘had’, and even though I’m not some bra-burning ultra feminist, thinking about things like this scares me a woman. A lot. I don’t identify with ‘Lydia’ literally because I haven’t had her experience, and I am thankful I have not. But what I can relate to is the feeling that as a woman, there are things that are ‘done’ to us by the men we encounter in our lives that leave emotional scars, scars that will never heal. Time will pass and we will get to the point where the pain no longer feels fresh. But the scars will always, always be there. Give that a thought for a moment.

Lastly, the song, presented in an unusual way: a way too devoted Maximo fan getting the lyrics tattooed – as ink, geddit? – permanently on her back. WHAT.