Picture the scene:

We’re in early 2008. ‘Now You’re Gone’ by Basshunter is no.1 in the charts, and I certainly can’t remember how that goes. People are still trying to work out what the 00s are about. I’m not sure anyone will ever know. The financial crisis is rolling.

And a 16-year-old, who cares little of the above, decides to expose a voice that shouldn’t be exposed to such an exposing degree. With consequences which, although not as severe as those caused by the financial crisis, are undesirable.

Sometimes I listen back to old songs and I wonder why I didn’t just change the key of the song a little bit to make it more within my singing range. I don’t wonder for long though because I know the answer, really. For too long, the most important thing for me was just finishing the song. I cared so much about the whole I forgot about the parts. And, with respect to the popular saying, a whole made of shit parts tends to just be a bigger shit.

Lucky then, that not every part of If It Means The World To You is bad. The strings, for example, are simple but lift the song appropriately. The lyrics, also simple, are effective. This is 10% a love song, and 90% a song about not knowing what to say when you’re meant to be comforting someone. A problem I have often encountered, especially as a teenager, due to my difficulty with seeming genuine when reacting to anything.

‘I will try my best to be as warm as you,
But if my coat’s not big enough, what will I do?’

Are a couple of good lines which convey the idea of getting everything wrong in these conversations.

And the tune as well, though sung badly, is pleasant enough.

There is a room in my parent’s house in which I spent a lot of my time growing up, because it has a television. And a big red sofa that has sunk in on itself in a comfortingly familiar way, over time. In this room is a collection of percussion instruments from around the world that my parents collected through the years. They sit in the corner of the room, near to the television, so I’ve spent a lot of time looking indirectly at them. The shaker used in the original version of this song is one of those instruments, so when I hear the song, I think of that room, and I feel the warmth you get from the most predictable, familiar settings.

 

If It Means The World To You slipped under the radar for a while. I think I decided, like any sane person would, that I had ruined it with my singing and I didn’t wish to pursue it any further. Until one day in my first year at university when I heard it again, and decided I liked the strings, and liked the basic emotion it had. So I recorded a new rough demo version on a small mic I had in my room.

It is much better than the original. I cleverly realised I had to lower the song’s pitch a bit in order to sing it. I sped it up a bit. I took out the percussion (this was probably out of necessity – I didn’t keep a large collection of world percussion instruments in my room at university), and I stopped singing ‘can’t’ in an american accent.

Someone I was in a band with at the time told me a couple of months later that he had started listening to it when he was going to sleep. Which was a bit over the top if you ask me. But this guy was one of those effortlessly cool people you instantly like and admire. So I took the compliment, and continued attempting to be more like him.

Here’s a better use of strings: