   #copyright

Nine Million Bicycles

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Musical Recordings and
compositions

   "Nine Million Bicycles"
   "Nine Million Bicycles" cover
   Single by Katie Melua
   from the album Piece by Piece
   B-side(s) "Market Day in Guernica", "Stardust"
   Released September 19, 2005 (UK)
   Format CD single, digital download
   Genre Pop/Jazz/ Blues
   Length 3:15
   Label Dramatico
   Writer(s) Mike Batt
   Producer(s) Mike Batt
   Chart positions
     * #5 ( UK)

   Katie Melua singles chronology
   " Crawling up a Hill"
   (2004) "Nine Million Bicycles"
   (2005) " I Cried for You"/" Just like Heaven"
   (2005)

   "Nine Million Bicycles" is a song written and produced by Mike Batt for
   Georgian-born singer Katie Melua's second album, Piece by Piece. It was
   released as the album's first single in September 2005 (see 2005 in
   music) and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, becoming
   Melua's first top five hit as a solo artist (she had previously
   participated in Band Aid 20's 2004 number-one charity single "Do They
   Know It's Christmas?"). It was a finalist for The Record of the Year
   prize, losing to " You Raise Me Up" by Westlife.

About the record

   According to Melua, the inspiration for the song came from when her
   interpreter during her time in Beijing, China was showing her and her
   manager, Mike Batt, around the city. The interpreter gave information
   about Beijing to them, including the fact that there are supposedly
   nine million bicycles in the city. Batt wrote a song based around the
   title "Nine Million Bicycles" upon his return to England two weeks
   later, and it was one of the last songs to be recorded for Piece by
   Piece. Adrian Brett, who played the ethnic flutes on Batt's album
   Caravans (1978), contributed to the song; an ocarina was used for the
   low sounds, and he played a Chinese bamboo flute for the high sounds.
   In the song Melua pronounces the name of the Chinese capital "Beishing"
   instead of "Beijing".

   Melua said that she liked the song "because it is a simple
   juxtaposition of a trivial idea ("Nine Million Bicycles") against an
   important idea ("I will love you till I die")". The website indieLondon
   named it one of the "highlights" of Piece by Piece, describing it as
   "genuinely sweet ... The meandering blasts of flute that weave their
   way throughout lend the song a Chinese feel and make it quite
   enticing."

   The single's video, directed by Kevin Godley, features Melua being
   dragged across the floor through a variety of settings, including a
   brief shot of the Summer Palace (Yiheyuan, Chinese: 颐和园/頤和園) in
   Beijing, until she returns to a picnic in a park with her friends.

   The song was featured prominently in a high-profile radio and
   television advertising campaign for the Slovenian cell-phone operator
   Mobitel.

Controversy

   On September 30, 2005, an article appeared in The Guardian newspaper in
   which physicist Simon Singh criticised the song's lyrics. Singh said
   that with the song Melua "demonstrates a deep ignorance of cosmology
   and no understanding of the scientific method", and objected to its
   second verse, where the song's protagonist "[contrasts] such guesswork
   with her own confidence in her blossoming long-term love":

          We are 12 billion light-years from the edge,
          That's a guess — no-one can ever say it's true,
          But I know that I will always be with you

   Singh interpreted the first lyric as a statement that the observable
   universe was twelve billion years old, which he said was incorrect;
   according to "the very latest data", the universe was actually 13.7
   billion years old. He added, "the next line in the song is
   unforgivable. To say that the age of the universe is "a guess" is an
   insult to a century of astronomical progress. The age of the universe
   is not just "a guess", but rather it is a carefully measured number
   that is now known to a high degree of accuracy". He wrote replacement
   lyrics which he believed would, if used, remedy his concerns:

          We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable
          universe,
          that's a good estimate with well-defined error bars,
          Scientists say it's true, but acknowledge that it may be
          refined,
          and with the available information, I predict that I will always
          be with you

   Singh's statements received moderate coverage in the media, and led
   Batt to submit a response to The Guardian in which he defended his
   right to poetic license. Melua agreed to re-record the song's second
   verse with Singh's proposed lyrics, though she said she encountered
   difficulty fitting in all of the syllables. The revised version, which
   omitted the line "Scientists say it's true, but acknowledge that it may
   be refined", premiered on the radio show The Today Programme on October
   15. Melua said that she felt embarrassed by the error in the song,
   particularly given that she had been a member of her school's astronomy
   club. Singh himself later said he intended his article to be "to some
   extent ... tongue-in-cheek", but that he also wanted to defend
   principles in cosmology "that are on much firmer ground". He added that
   he believed his response to the song's lyrics had helped introduce
   cosmology to a wider audience, and said that "the writing of the
   original article was probably the most productive hour of my career".

Credits

   Personnel

     * Vocals by Katie Melua
     * Guitars by Katie Melua, Chris Spedding, Jim Cregan
     * Piano by Mike Batt
     * Bass by Tim Harries
     * Drums by Henry Spinetti
     * Solo trumpet by Dominic Glover
     * Solo violin by Mike Darcy
     * Percussion by; Martin Ditchman, Chris Karan
     * Ethnic flutes by Adrian Brett
     * Orchestra – The Irish Film Orchestra; conducted by Mike Batt

   Production

     * Producers – Mike Batt
     * Engineer – Steve Sale
     * Arranger – Mike Batt

Track listing

    1. "Nine Million Bicycles" ( Mike Batt) – 3:15
    2. "Market Day in Guernica" (Batt) – 4:02
    3. "Stardust" ( Hoagy Carmichael, Mitchell Parish) – 4:10

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Million_Bicycles"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
