The Kooks - 'Sway'
Oh brilliant! I love this song! We all love this song, don't we? Yes we do! Come on, sing it with me!
"Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to yeeewwww..."
Hmm...I can't help but notice that Luke Kooks has entirely failed to learn the words properly. Or the tune. And the chorus is entirely missing. What gives, curly?
OK, to be fair, it's not like this is the first time a musician has found the churning, cyclical trudge of 'Wonderwall' to be a beguiling starting point for a song. Green Day's 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams' is an even closer carbon copy than this is. Travis's 'Writing To Reach You' even mentions the Oasis original in the lyrics, so that no-one could accuse Fran Healy of passing Noel Gallagher's work as his own (something Noel himself would NEVER do...erm...).
And we do have to be extra generous, because we now find ourselves listening to a Kooks song which does not sound like a dry music school homework assignment - ironic really, given that 'Write A Song Based On A Britpop Classic' could easily BE a music school homework assignment. A song which features Luke singing like he actually means it, rather than singing like he's hoping everyone will notice how cool he is, being in a band and all, and a song with a stronger sense of drama and dynamics than the band have displayed before.
It's funny how Kooks songs always seem to feature one really Marmitey lyric, isn't it? There's always one line which fans don't really notice, or really love, but which is salt-in-a-wound irritating to everyone else. I'm thinking of gems like "she came to my show just to hear about my day" or "about your hair you needn't care, you're beautiful all the time".
In 'Sway', the line which will have the Poet Laureate pulling his own face off in frustration is "I need your soul, cos you're always soulful", a line which sounds like it means something profound, and is certainly sung that way, but is more pleased with its own circular logic than it has any right to be.
Of course, you could argue that the Grand Master of lyrics like this is Noel Gallagher again, so putting it in is a conceptual joke, a tip of the hat to the man who wrote the song this song is partly based on. And given that this is easily the most raw and heartfelt Kooks moment to date, who am I to claim that this is not the case?
Download: Out now
CD Released: October 13th
(Fraser McAlpine)
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