Westlife - My Love (Watch on Youtube) To ease us into the meat and bones of Coast To Coast, it's another Cheiron Productions song, threaded with hints of previous Wezza hits: the acoustic guitar intro from "If I Let You Go", the jumping chorus melody from "Fool Again", lack of harmonies from, well, everything. Nothing is wasted, only reproduced!* The unsettling chord change at the end of the chorus ("again... my love") is also something I have come to associate with the Cherion singles: I always initially get caught out by the way the hook doesn't quite resolve or rhyme in the way I expect it to, but by the time the 3 minutes are up, it seems perfectly normal and even quite catchy. The weirdest bit also coincides with the song's title: these Swedish dudes know exactly what they're doing. Speaking of which, I discovered today that Ikea uses ABBA for their hold music. I would expect nothing less, though I would have picked "The Day Before You Came" instead of "Mamma Mia" for extra domesticity points. Back to the matter in hand. The boys bring their usual strengths to the party: Lead Westlife kicks off, Curtains McFadden does the 2nd verse, Mark does the middle 8 - and 5th Westlife gets a SPEAKING ROLE! We must hurry - Isengard is 3 days' march! Kian isn't happy about this. I cannot jump the distance, you'll have to toss me. A few seconds of appalling acting reveals that the Wezzas' flight has been cancelled and they have to get home via a combination of invisible train and CGI dimensional warp: Definitely more like SG-1 than the Matrix Efficiently mirroring the recycled song elements, in the shot below the video also mimics 1) the aerial fly-past shot from "Fool Again", 2) the tricep-strengthening arm action from "Flying Without Wings" 3) the cliff top/beach from whatever the 2nd single was. (Too lazy to check the top of the post which I wrote some months ago, soz). I can't tell who is responsible but I believe this might be our first sighting of proper Nu-Metal trousers upon the Westlife legs: 2001, everybody!** Is this a ballad? It's not really soppy enough, especially with the repeated football-chant chorus bludgeoning at the end, although in no sense could this be called a banger. The verses provide a bit more insight into the Wez motivation: a determined glee at being miserable, especially in the hands of Lead Westlife who seems to relish the chance to get his teeth into a clearly defined Emotional Trope: 'An empty street, An empty house / A hole inside my heart / I'm all alone, the rooms are getting smaller.' A dramatic opening but entirely forgotten by the 1st chorus - the thought of home comforts neutralising his inner Fillyjonk Who Secretly Loves Disasters. Bryan on the other hand can't sing this sort of stuff without a sarcastic grin: 'I try to read, I go to work / I'm laughing with my friends / But I can't stop to keep myself from thinking, oh, no.' He's blatantly cheating on you while he's 4000 miles away. Poor Kerry Katona. The themes of separation and homesickness are prime Mum-pop territory, whether One's Love is on the front lines in Afghanistan or working a double-shift at the TGI Fridays round the back of Harrow Warner Village Cinema - if you're stuck at home minding the kids then having 5 nice young men telling you how much they miss you might give you some comfort. Or the impetus to sack off the long distance relationship and shack up with Maureen from next-door. Whatever. My own wanderlust has waned as I have got older and my luggage has become heavier. Not for nothing did I ask for gift vouchers from my family this Xmas. But while I can empathise with 5th Westlife's travel frustrations I don't tend to get homesick, and never have. I remember heading off on Brownie Pack Holiday aged 7, and couldn't understand why several of the girls were in tears because they 'missed home'. It was only the first night! Didn't they find it an adventure, being away from parents and sleeping on a camp bed in an exciting, Winnie-The-Pooh-decorated church hall in Lewes? I found out later that it was only Laura who was upset about leaving her ill dog behind, and the others had twigged that crying would get them some extra hot chocolate. On a later Pack Holiday (this time in a drafty church hall in Winchester) I used this ruse myself as an excuse for why I was crying, to cover up that I felt bad about slagging off Faye behind her back for being a cow, when I should have said it to her face. This doesn't make me feel any more sympathetic towards Bryan. However I wonder if Kian's dog is alright. Oh dear. *I like only 3 Blur songs and that's one of them. **Fact-checking triumph: we're still only in 2000 after all! Ooof.











