Don't get your hopes up! This isn't real. It is only a dream. But for me it is a recurring one. The one where Katie has every season of the year covered. Katie Melua's Four Seasons: In Spring, In Summer, In Autumn and In Winter. One down, three to go... Okay, this isn't likely to become a thing any time soon, or perhaps ever, but that won't stop me thinking of the possibilities. In my mind I'm already hearing covers of "Summertime" and "September Song". Sigh.

Now that this page has a dark theme it seems a good time to talk about the dark theme in some of Katie’s songs. Some of her songs seem like straightforward love songs but many of them have a darker edge or twist to them. The obvious example is “If You Were A Sailboat”. This is a song that many people see, or rather hear, as a true romantic ballad. After all, “If you were a river I would swim you, if you were a house I would live in you all my days” sounds exactly like the hopelessly romantic gibberish that lovers spout to each other. But really, as early as the second line - “if you were a piece of wood I would nail you to the floor” - you should be thinking there’s more going on here. This is about a controlling, possessive love where obsession and jealousy fester away in one person whilst the other begins to feel stifled and trapped. Anyone who has experienced a relationship like this will find the song moving and poignant, perhaps even painful. The catchy melody and Katie’s sweet delivery allow the song to work just fine as a light love tune but the real message is in there when you look. The devil is in the detail.

“I’d Love To Kill You” is less subtle perhaps but another example of love’s darker side. Then there are the songs where love has fallen apart, such as “It’s Only Pain”, “Junk Mail” and one of my favourites “What I Miss About You”. The latter is another great example of a song that seems very doe-eyed and cosy to begin with and it is easy to get swept along with that and not realise how sour things have turned in the second half of it. The final verse always blows me away, a devastating ending and my favourite three lines of lyrics in any song ever. “Love Is A Silent Thief”, “Never Felt Less Like Dancing” and “Red Balloons” are three more examples. Then there’s “Piece By Piece”, “Shirt Of A Ghost”, “Straight To DVD”, “The Bit That I Don’t Get”, “The One I Love Is Gone”. Are you sensing a pattern here? Happily ever after is a hard outcome to find it would seem. With all these songs about love gone wrong it is no surprise to find one about the fear of love going wrong, which is what “This Is The Love I’m Frightened Of” is about.

So there you have it. Don’t ever think Katie is all about soppy love songs; listen more closely, read between the lyrics and remember that nothing is ever quite as it seems…

Oh, and if you want to balance all of this darkness with the lighter side of love, well, there’s always “Idiot School”.
​

If you're anything like me you may have been tempted over to the dark side. Since Apple introduced Dark Mode it is hard to conceive how we ever survived the bright assault on our eyes we've been subjected to all these years. So if you can't beat 'em....
I'm implementing a dark theme for All About Katie. It is optional - if you wish to remain sweetness and light, or indeed return to it should the dark side scare you, then you may. You will notice two buttons have appeared under the Craggie's Blog banner. I'll let you take a wild guess at what they are for. When you choose a theme it should stick with you across the site *but* I am having to make a little change to every single page for this to happen, so if I miss one or two please don't scream - I am meticulous and I will make sure they all get done!

If you see an awful jumbled mess instead of the beautiful site you were expecting you may need to clear your browser's cache (not cash; that won't help at all). Mind you, if you see an awful jumbled mess you might not get to read this paragraph so I'm just talking to myself here.

I love “If The Lights Go Out”. It has a catchy little riff using the chords

G D C Em

This sequence reminds of another song I like, “Brilliant Disguise” by Bruce Springsteen. It has a similar little riff based on the chords

A Asus2 Asus4 A

Completely different chords and a completely different song, yet hearing the one always puts me in mind of the other. No doubt musicologists could explain why, banging on about intervals and what not, but I don’t really care. I love both songs, I love both artists, and I love the emotive mystery of music.

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This is a photo I stumbled across that stopped me in my tracks. It isn't Katie. But for some reason it made me think of her. If ever I figure it out I'll let you know. Actually, I probably won't. It's a bit like a hidden objects picture only in this case it's hidden reasons. I've thought of four reasons so far though I'm certain there are more. Oh, just ignore me, I think I'm going serenely mad...

WHAT? But there's two months of winter left! I know, I know. But I don't want to wear out the vinyl, or the CD for that matter. Hell, I could even wear out the mp3 I reckon. Don't worry, I have a cunning plan. I'm hammering Ultimate Collection instead. UC, you see, contains seven of the ten songs on IW. One of the three omitted is O Holy Night, a standard Christmas carol that has no business being listened to in February anyway. So you get a healthy mix of wintry charm as well as all the general Katie goodness of her other material. And that precious white vinyl can remain pristine a little longer. That's what I call a win-win idea.

Now, if you are a proper Ketefan I expect you to own all her albums in physical and digital formats. But I must accept that some people will just listen to her on Spotify, such is the world today. To that end, I've made life a little easier for these streamaphobes by creating a Spotify code for Katie. On your phone, tap the search icon in Spotify and tap the camera icon, then scan one of the images below. The one on the right has been added to the info panel on the right hand side of this page so it will always be handy. You could even print it out and stick it to the wall. Or better still just buy all her music.

Why? Why not? The one in the middle was created in PhotoScape. The one on the left is a physical object you can print out and make thanks to my cunning design, as is the In Winter variant on the right.
-> How to make Katie dice

A beautiful performance of All Night Vigil by Katie and the Gori Women's Choir on Songs Of Praise was shown yesterday. This was an edited piece from 2017 cut into a new edition of the show, presumably because it was just so good.

I came across this quote from a BBC interview in November 2003:

Fifteen years later I think we can safely say that ambition has been achieved. When she performs songs from Call Off The Search at live shows they get rapturously received to this day, and they also get regular airplay time on radio stations around the world. In another fifteen years I believe In Winter will be seen as a classic album too (for some of us it was after fifteen minutes). To me, the very definition of a Katie Melua fan is someone who appreciates the music for the music.

2018

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2017

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