Keane - Hopes and Fears

What do you think Keane's hopes and fears might be?

Hope: The Earl of Rochester will take the hand of sister Phillipa, thus increasing the Keane family's land.

Fear: The Earl of Rochester will continue visiting Tom in the night, drunk on port.

Hope: The new gamekeeper will be able to protect the land from the poor.

Fear: The poor will rise as one, claim the Keane family's land and divide it amongst themselves.

Hope: A Keane will one day rise to the throne to rule over the poor AND the rich.

Fear: The genetic weaknesses that have arisen through excessive interbreeding will one day conquer the Keanes, meaning no-one will be able to protect the land from the poor.

Keane - Under The Iron Sea

I know what you're thinking: If this Keane album were a Carter USM song, which would it be? The answer, of course, is 'Lean On Me, I Won't Fall Over'.

Does anyone else think that 'Crystal Ball' sounds a bit like 'Chris De Burgh' the way its sung? I certainly do and to be honest, I think those actually ARE the words and Keane are just pretending they aren't so that we don't run them out of town on a railroad. They're just the sort of sherry-swilling fops who think Chris De Burgh has something to offer.

Speaking of fops, I used to work with an upper-class one (is there any other kind). He couldn't cook for shit and the one time he tried, he made a dry duck breast. I asked what he made with it and he'd cooked a steak. A dry steak and a dry duck breast. He was one of those people who like to throw money at a problem.

Back to Keane anyway. Let's try and guess what 'Under The Iron Sea' means. It sounds like it's possibly some sort of allusion to the oppression of man by machine or something similarly wank. You're not complaining about the relentless march of technology when you're listening to Chris De Burgh on your iPods are you Keane?

The last track on Under The Iron Sea is called 'Frog Prince'. I'm going to be generous and dismiss the probability that this is a reference to a fairytale. Instead I'm going to believe that it's a song about amphibian royalty. There are nowhere near enough songs about amphibian monarchs.