Style
"Helicopter", could be seen as a song addressed to George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. It has the lyrics: "North to south, empty, running on, bravado... He's gonna save the world... Just like his Dad... (the same mistakes), Some things will never be different... Are you hoping for a miracle? (It's not enough)" In response to this issue, Okereke said in an interview, "'Helicopter' isn't about Bush; it's a song about waking up and realizing certain things. I hope what people got from that song wasn't a critique of American life. I got really worried when I started reading our message boards; there was an American who had read the lyrics of "Helicopter" and had come to the conclusion that we were advocating that the European way is the ideal. But that wasn't it at all. Europeans have their own set of problems.″
Nonetheless, for the second album A Weekend in the City, he chose more personal and political subjects for songs. A family friend, Christopher Alaneme, had been murdered in a racist attack, while David Morley, a London bartender, was beaten to death in a possibly homophobic "happy slapping". Okereke has claimed that these events, combined with the 7 July London bombings "galvanised mindset", prompting him to make the lyrics "dark, bigger and quite abrasive".
Read more about this topic: Kele Okereke
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“In comedy, the witty style wins out over every mishap of the plot.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“It is not in our drawing-rooms that we should look to judge of the intrinsic worth of any style of dress. The street-car is a truer crucible of its inherent value.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)