Only Fans: The Musical

On Coldplay and root canals.

Hello Dear Reader

It has been a torrid few weeks chez Pallot, and nothing on the thirty four different astrology sites I frequent on a regular basis (as in daily) forewarned me. Not at all - in fact, like a child the night before Christmas, I was eagerly awaiting June 24th which every single site told me would be the luckiest day of the year. I started daydreaming about Caribbean islands and opening a cat sanctuary. My luck was confined to winning £6.60 on Euromillions, having half my tooth fall off resulting in not one but THREE fillings, someone chainsawing through our broadband connection and having to clean cat sick off our nice garden furniture. Narrowly avoiding a root canal, was, I suppose, a huge win, but still.

Some of you may have heard of a music journalist called Everett True. He would absolutely loathe my music and I would more than likely loathe his record collection, but that notwithstanding I have been a long time admirer of his writing. He largely hates the records I love or quite like, and yet I don’t mind because his writing is so bloody good. For some inexplicable reason, True actively chose to move to Brisbane - a city I know extremely well and actively chose never to live in even though I had Australian residency during the 90s - and set about creating Collapseboard, an online music site which is responsible for the single greatest review of a Coldplay album EVER.

Now, if you’re a Coldplay fan you might have found that review offensive. I am an early Coldplay fan - as in, I loved the first two albums, by the fourth started to have doubts about where this was all headed and ended up ready to personally vandalise every single one of those stupid bloody bikes they were using to power their stupid stadium shows while taking private jets the way you or I might take a bus. (We do not have enough time or energy for me to get started on the Bezos-Sanchez nuptials, I may not be able to stop on that front.)

There was a time when I was regularly triggered any time I heard Viva La Vida. It would take me back to long days and nights spent in a TV studio in Berlin, working on the first season of The Voice of Germany, when it was chosen as one of the songs by a couple of contestants who really should have chosen something else, something better suited to their voices, shall we say. Further compounding the trauma of this association was that on the same show, two male contestants had chosen to cover Valerie by Amy Winehouse. A perfect song and record in every conceivable way, that I thought I would never tire of hearing. Until that is, I had to hear it being sung, over and over, by two albeit excellent vocalists but with heavy German accents, so that the chorus lyric became

‘Why don’t you come all over Valerie?’

It was Only Fans: The Musical before we inevitably get Only Fans: The Musical.

For a time, I could not listen to either song. The years passed and I began to think of Coldplay less as music and more as everything that was now wrong with the world. Conscious uncoupling, vagina candles, those ridiculous plastic - YES PLASTIC - charity wristbands, wearing military jackets on stage when the only active service you have seen is negotiating the toilets at Glastonbury - I couldn’t remember the time when I would listen to Yellow or Clocks on repeat.

And then, when he was six years old, my son and I fell in love with the same song, Adventure of a Lifetime. We would blast it in the car, and I would hold back tears hearing his little voice singing along with everything he had. There are very few things in this world I love more than hearing my kid singing along to something.

Actually, no, there’s nothing I love more than hearing my kid singing along to something.

Suddenly I could forgive Chris Martin everything.

It meant I could enjoy those first three albums again. I could put them on while I made dinner and be trusted with a sharp object. I no longer heard The Scientist and wanted to punch someone. I could sing along un-ironically.

I had let the joy of Coldplay back in to my heart.

(No. Wait. Oh my God what have I done? The Joy of Coldplay sounds like the manual to Only Fans: The Musical.)

And so, all this serves as a preamble to tell you why the latest instalment in my Covers Odyssey is God Put A Smile Upon Your Face. There are any number of songs from their oeuvre I might have picked, but I always thought this was one of their weirder songs, and the juxtaposition of the slightly odd chords with the lyric is what stops it tipping into Fix You territory.

There is of course Mark Ronson’s brilliantly mad cover from 2007, but otherwise it’s not one of Coldplay’s more covered songs. I figured the song out through the bass first. (As an aside, the bass player in Coldplay is basically the luckiest man in rock isn’t he? I can’t even remember his name, have no idea what he looks like and dude goes on stage to thousands, has written a ton of hits and can nip out to the Co-op for a pint of milk and nobody’s any the wiser. That man - whatever his name is - is winning in life.)

One of my favourite songs from recent years is Portugal. The Man’s Feel It Still which I would be covering if it had been written by someone British or Irish - as it is, I want you to think of this as me covering Coldplay via Portugal. The Man. If you aren’t a fan of the former, then think of this as the latter, and vice versa. If you don’t like either, then there’s no helping you I’m afraid.

Have a wonderful weekend!

With love as ever,

Nerina xxxx

P.S. Chris Martin was born in Exeter, so this serves as the cover for my show there on October 9th. In other news, Cardiff is the latest show to have sold out, and tickets are going fast for many others.