Home Entertainment How I wrote ‘Is It Any Surprise?’ by Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley – Songwriting Magazine

How I wrote ‘Is It Any Surprise?’ by Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley – Songwriting Magazine

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How I wrote ‘Is It Any Surprise?’ by Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley – Songwriting Magazine

How I wrote Keane's 'Is It Any Wonder?' in Songwriting Magazine

How I wrote Keane’s ‘Is It Any Surprise?’ by Tim Rice-Oxley in Songwriting Magazine

We learn the way the upbeat hit single was written below the stress of fixed touring and the Warfare on Terror

Anthemic rock band Keane was born out of the post-Britpop panorama and – not like many also-rans of the period – shortly achieved mainstream, worldwide success with the discharge of their 2004 debut album, Hopes And Fears. Over the subsequent decade, the group from Battle, Sussex would go on to promote over 11 million albums worldwide, with all 4 reaching the UK No 1 spot. They’d additionally win two Brit Awards and an Ivor Novello, and allure a worldwide fanbase by enjoying greater than 700 exhibits in over 40 nations.

Though singer Tom Chaplin and drummer Richard Hughes each contributed to the artistic course of, keyboard participant Tim Rice-Oxley took the reins because the principal songwriter and helped form Keane’s piano-driven signature sound.

Right here, Tim talks about how they made Is It Any Surprise?, certainly one of their most profitable singles, the second launched from their second chart-topping album Beneath The Iron Sea


Is It Any Wonder single cover

Launched: 29 Could 2006
Artist: Keane
Label: Island
Songwriters: Tim Rice-Oxley, Tom Chaplin, Richard Hughes
Producers: Andy Inexperienced
UK chart place: 3
US chart place: 78

“I discovered [the second album Beneath The Iron Sea] very annoying and the best way I handled it was to work actually onerous on it. However I assume there have been lots of unwell results from that – for me and the opposite guys within the band – even when I didn’t in all probability admire it on the time. I imply, Hopes And Fears was so successful that we had been nonetheless touring it actually onerous not less than a yr after it got here out – in all probability greater than that – so we had been already panicking in regards to the subsequent album, lengthy earlier than that tour had completed.

“So I was at the back of the tour bus every single day, with a keyboard, attempting to put in writing songs, and I acquired to the purpose the place I stated, ‘Can I not do any extra interviews, so I can simply keep on the bus and write?’ Then, every single day off, I’d be both be in my lodge room with a keyboard or discover a studio in no matter city we had been in, and work once more, file some demos, play them to the opposite guys… So the method was very a lot occurring on the street. It was fairly enjoyable, in a approach. I keep in mind discovering a little bit studio in Detroit and Berlin.

“I suppose, on reflection, it labored out fairly properly as a result of it in all probability compelled me to put in writing, to push the songs actually onerous and push myself to complete them, and preserve the usual excessive – we had been at all times punishing ourselves with our excessive requirements. However in a approach, I’m amazed it turned out in addition to it did. The entire really feel of that file is sort of darkish and annoying, I assume, to my ears, so it in all probability did feed into the lyrics – I suppose, I was simply attempting to work out and articulate no matter was occurring in my head!

“The best way I typically write, even now, is: if I can get a little bit of the melody, and even the refrain not less than, then it’ll are inclined to percolate, typically for months. I was dwelling in a type of garret flat and it had a piano in it, and I keep in mind enjoying the refrain of Is It Any Surprise? and having the melody with no lyrics – simply these two or three chords.

“It at all times makes me assume that it had a really U2-ish ‘eighths-y’ factor and a very thrilling vitality, a bit like I Will Comply with. So I had that in my head and was carrying it round and didn’t actually know what to put in writing in any respect.

How I wrote Keane's 'Is It Any Wonder?' in Songwriting Magazine

How I wrote ‘Is It Any Surprise?’ by Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley: “I was at the back of the tour bus every single day, with a keyboard, attempting to put in writing songs…”

“Then I keep in mind being in a aircraft someplace, as a result of we had been nonetheless touring loads, and I assume it felt like a annoying time on the planet, with the Iraq conflict and Afganistan. Like so many individuals, of no matter age, I definitely felt fairly traumatised by 9/11. The autumn-out remains to be being felt at the moment, however we had been proper in the course of it on the time and it was very a lot in everybody’s consciousness. In order that feeling of being very on-edge in some way led to that phrase, ‘Is it any marvel?’

“If you go searching and there’s all these items occurring, you’re consistently being bombarded with terrifying information from all over the world. I suppose issues had been fairly annoying within the band as properly, I hated flying and I was in all probability feeling fairly frazzled on the time, so being at 35,00zero toes over the Atlantic, or no matter, discovered me in fairly a bizarre headspace anyway.

“And I keep in mind sitting there with my laptop computer pondering that was a phrase that might begin a sequence of traces with that query, ‘Is it any marvel…?’ So the entire music, lyrically, flowed very properly from there.

“I’m a really instinctive author, so I are inclined to comply with my nostril with a music and, if I’ve gone in a specific route with it, I discover it onerous to alter it. Individuals say, ‘You’ll be able to at all times return to the place you had been and it’s best to simply preserve pushing your boundaries,’ and I know that’s true, in my head, however it’s nonetheless onerous to do – to take that leap and check out one thing totally different from what you’ve already acquired.

“I’d almost completed the music with a few others and I requested my tour supervisor to ebook a studio in Cologne. I hadn’t completed the center eight and we had been staying in a lodge overlooking Cologne Cathedral, which is a lovely previous gothic cathedral. And I’d been listening to a narrative about, when town was bombed by the allies, the cathedral was the one factor that was miraculously untouched.

“That actually acquired caught in my head and fed properly into the center eight lyrics. It’s a really emotional music; there’s lots of war-themed stuff on that album [Beneath The Iron Sea].

“So I had one thing I may go and file, I did a little bit demo and I keep in mind Tom [Chaplin] actually loving it. That’s when I began to assume, ‘Thank God for that! We’ve acquired one thing.’”

Keane’s newest album Trigger And Impact is out now on Island Data. Discover out extra at keanemusic.com

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