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"Bedshaped" is a song by English rock band Keane, released as the third single from Hopes and Fears. It sold about 22,000 copies in its first week of release; it became their third consecutive top ten hit on the British charts, after the release of "Somewhere Only We Know" and "Everybody's Changing". "Bedshaped" charted at number 10 in the UK and also became a commercial success in Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
Background and meaning
"Bedshaped" was composed sometime in 2001 by Tim Rice-Oxley. It was originally recorded at Les Essarts, France, and first released as a B-side on the Fierce Panda release of "Everybody's Changing" in May 2003. James Sanger is credited on this song as the fourth composer.
Rice-Oxley posted an explanation of the song on the official messageboard:
is about feeling that you've been "left behind" by an old friend or lover, and about hoping that you'll be reunited one day so that you can live out the end of your lives together the way you started them (…) a hope that they'll eventually want to get away from the bright lights and come back home. it's a sad and angry song, but also full of hope. I think I'm right in saying that in hospital when someone is ill and has to spend a lot of time in bed they can become 'bedshaped'. It sounds a bit depressing (…) but in the context of the song I wanted to suggest old age and frailty(…)
Composition
The song is written in the key of E major, with a tempo of 76bpm. After a mysterious intro, a honky tonk-reminiscent piano completes the main riff, with an Emaj chord. The vocals are introduced 59 seconds in. After the second chorus, a small piano-riff gives place to the song's instrumental bridge which featured gothic voices, ending with an instrumental chorus with guitar alike sounds, produced by Rice-Oxley's Yamaha CX7 (these are sung by Chaplin during some live performances) to fade with Chaplin singing "But what do I know?, what do I know? I know".
Music video
The video for the song is available on the enhanced CD single version, as well as the Bonus DVD edition of Hopes and Fears and on Strangers. The video is directed by Corin Hardy, and based on his animated short film "Butterfly", making use of stop-motion animation. The video shows a bedraggled, naked man amongst some refuse, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. He is lonely and sad, and crawls into a bathroom where he hides, and writes some of the song's lyrics such as 'don't laugh at me' and "don't look away" on the walls, like graffiti. A cat drags some ill-fitting clothes into the room for him, where he dresses and dares to venture outside. He exits and sees people gathered in a restaurant. He hallucinates and their faces turn into gremlin-like monsters, causing him to run back to the bathroom in fear, only for the walls to collapse and drown him in white light. The wizened man finds himself against a white background, where he witnesses animated versions of Keane's band members playing the titular song with the lyrics he wrote on the walls. Having seemingly found solace in this unusual scene, the man, along with Keane, fades into the light.
The band appear throughout as animation within the background of the main action, and as drawings towards the end of the video. To achieve this, Hardy's friend David Lupton was recruited to hand-draw 500 pictures of the band in the space of a week.
The music video was produced by Kit Hawkins and Adam Tudhope for White House Pictures.
Cover versions
- Italian opera singer Vittorio Grigolo recorded an Italian-language version of "Bedshaped", renamed "Cosi", which appears on his album In the Hands of Love.
- British band Marillion recorded a cover on their live album Friends.
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