The song – Bedshaped
Sometimes words fail to pinpoint the emotions one is going through where poetry and music are proven to be the strongest tools. Loss of the loved ones is one such feeling which is purely subjective thus is difficult to generalize. The melancholy from the loss of an intimate person, the feeling of a big void in existence and the irreplaceability of that person are such emotions that are very difficult to trade with other things. A song called “Bedshaped” written by Keane taps into such types of emotions.
“Bedshaped” is a song by English rock band Keane, released as the third single from Hopes and Fears. It became their third consecutive top-10 hit on the UK Singles Chart, after “Somewhere Only We Know” and “Everybody’s Changing”, peaking at number 10. The song also reached the top 20 in Denmark and the Netherlands.
For oversimplification, although not recommended for such a fine piece of art – this song highlights how we are always looking for that emotional pivot in our life and what happens when one loses that pivot.
The Lyrics
The lyrics is written by James Keith Warnock Sanger / Richard David Hughes / Thomas Oliver Chaplin / Timothy James Rice-Oxley © CTM Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group
Many's the time I ran with you down
The rainy roads of our old town
Many the lives we lived in each day
And buried altogether
The poet is reminiscing the days he has spent with the person he is missing right now. He wants to remind this person that he misses that they lived those day together to the fullest and in such a way that every new day was a new life, everyday brought something new with it. These memories are not limited to the liveliness of the experiences from each days start only. They are also connected to how those moments disappeared at the end of those days. Whatever the days were, they both were together to witness those moments. This remembrance by the poet shows his longing for that special person – man or woman whoever they were. It is about a vacuum created by the loss of this important person.
Don't laugh at me
Don't look away
The poet is scared that there is no one left who can understand his state of mind. Now that there is no person left who were closer to him, intimate with him, who could care for him – he fears that the world will make fun of his confusion, directionless condition. The poet pleading to not be laughed at, not be ignored indicates that he is aware of the bad condition which he is going through but is helpless as nobody closer to him now exists.
The poet has become so self-judgmental that he has surety of people making fun of him instead of consoling him for the loss. One must understand why the poet has this innate fear and strong surety for the reaction of world for his loss; it is because he knows that the person he lost only and truly knew his personality – rest of the world will draw some conclusions instead of understanding the reasons behind his behavior.
One may call this emotion as the feeling of self-loathing because there is no one left for the person to reflect on the emotions of loss he is going through. The person has started to hate himself.
But there is some hope!
You'll follow me back with the sun in your eyes
And on your own
Bed shaped
In legs of stone
You'll knock on my door and up we'll go
In white light
The poet is so much consumed by the feelings of loss that he expects that this lost person or here we can say his spirit will come back to retrieve our poet to the after-world where they can coexist. “Bedshaped” indicates that this loss has made the poet so sick, immobile that the bed on which he is lying has become an extension of his body. The “legs of stone” indicate the disinterest poet has developed. He does not want to go anywhere. One must understand that this was the same person – the poet who had lived every day as new life with his beloved and now lost person. These are the feelings of depression due to the loss of the loved ones, but the poet hopes that their spirit may come back to rescue him.
I don't think so
But what do I know
What do I know
The poet expects that the strong bond of love may truly help him to recover from this loss but he is now so lonely that there is this uncertainty that this might not actually happen. The poet now moves on the boundaries of reality and illusions.
I know you think I'm holding you down
And I've fallen by the wayside now
And I don't understand the same things as you
But I do
This explains how the presence of a having loved one, and intimacy with such person can boost the self-esteem, confidence rather the whole personality of that person.
Now that the poet has lost such loved ones, he knows that he may not be the same confident person he was before. This makes him feel that he is not worthy of what that person made him. This feeling of becoming worthless again points to the emotions of self-loathing.
Now you should also understand that the poet is somewhat aware of what is actually going wrong an has this urge to recover from all this grief. He still bears the hope to come out of this alive but there is very fine line between the meaninglessness of his life and mere survival.
The Video
The video is stop motion animation directed by Corin Hardy. Which itself is fine piece of art.
The story conveyed in the video of the song actually deepens the meaning behind the song and amplifies the mixed emotions of grief, loss, self-humiliation, meaninglessness and most importantly the hope for liberation.
The video shows some short events in the day of a roadside naked drunkard who has lost the sense of his surroundings.
He misses the company of person he loved, the only person who truly understood him. He is miserable to pass this life on his own and alone.
We can be sure of this meaning because the rest of the world is completely hostile environment for him now. He is running away from people. Hiding himself.
Running away from the people, he grieves in a restroom. The restroom here indicates the privacy he has, the shelter of some comfort with his intimate thoughts and the memories of his loved ones. We metaphorically, are inside his mind where he is trying to understand this loneliness. He wants to recover from this misery and feel liberated. Hope is the only thing that he relies on, hence we see him contemplating his ideas in this restroom.
The thoughts written on the wall indicate the chaos, the confusion that person has in his mind as he has no close person to show the direction, the ways. The isolation in the restroom with his thoughts with his degraded condition indicates the urge to find someone who truly cares for him and the meaninglessness in life created by the loss of the loved ones.
You will notice that a cat brings him clothes from somewhere which somewhat lifts him up and that is also why he gathers the courage to revisit the world and blend in with the people in it. He tries to free his mind by letting go off the thoughts of misery.
Imagine what could have happened if a person would have given him the clothes instead of the cat. If a person would have offered him the clothes, then the chances for his recovery from grief would have been extremely high. Simple support from a non-human being gave him the hope to come out of his grief. Which is powerfully conveyed in the music video.
When this guy wears the clothes and tries to face the world, tries to vacate his mind the stares of unknown people again haunt him thereby pushing him again into his now chaotic and directionless mind.
This shows how sensitive a person is when he is facing the loss of his loved ones. The urge for the longing of the person who can truly understand you is strong in most of the people and there is nothing wrong in it.
Closing remarks
In the end of the music video, you will see the restroom the private room getting shattered and penetrated by ‘the white light’ this person was longing for. He is finally liberated. The song thus leaves at poignant and melancholic note where we are left to find out whether that liberation was his death or him losing all the control over his mind.
I would ask what’s the difference between them anyways? Does that difference really matter?
Longing for intimacy
Human beings are social animals not because they form some groups for mutual benefits so that everyone can survive, grow, prosper and leave something extra for the upcoming generations. A person cannot become aware about his existence without interacting with his surroundings. The crude awareness comes from the interaction with the materialistic things around the person but the core awareness of a person’s existence comes from their interactions with the people around them. That is why I think human beings are called social animals. We always assign our own value, our own worth (physical, financial, psychological, intellectual etc.,) relative to the things and people around us.
It is also true that absolutely nothing is required to understand the existence of one’s being but that is only possible when one has understood what is means to exist relative to the things in their surroundings. You can say that the person who has achieved the topmost levels of spirituality won’t need anything to define themselves thereby becoming truly liberated, they are free from longing for anything but even these people have to go through the event of understanding their meaning for the existence through the relativity with the surrounding objects and most importantly people.
So, in every sense we as a human being always need some person with whom we can comfortably compare our worth – please understand that this comparison is not for competitiveness. Because when a person is actually seeking the meaning behind their existence – the words like competition, race and superiority have microscopic worth as if they don’t even exist. When the person understands where they actually stand with respect to this person then it justifies the purpose, the meaning of their being. This person becomes their pivot for the life lying ahead.
As the quote goes:
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu
Actually, it is not the power of love, it is the influence of having someone to justify our existence which brings out the best of the person. And who doesn’t want to be their best version? That is why love and its influence are powerful for human beings as social animals.
This is where intimacy comes in picture
Please note that intimacy is not limited to what lies between two people madly in love and neither is it limited to physical one. It can exist between two best friends, between a teacher and his pupil, between a manager and his subordinate, between an old grandpa and a young boy who are not actually related. Some people may call them soulmates and in most cases these relations are far from the blood relations although such intimate relations are possible in blood relations too. Also, understand that the intimacy can also be limited the self only but general examples are uncommon.
In very simple words, intimacy is that place of comfort where the person can be who they are without any judgements, benchmarks, and comparisons (although the basic logic emerges from relative comparison but it is not a competitive comparison. This is like the comparison where one realizes the similarity and differences in constructive ways)
So, when a person loses such intimate person in their lives the whole pivot of life, the center of the meaningfulness of their life gets destroyed which brings this existential crisis, the chaotic void, the unfilled vacuum. This loss of person and the feelings which come after that loss are difficult to express to everyone as intimacy can never be generalized.
In the first place, even before finding their intimate person people are always searching for their ‘go to’ person, they long for such person. Now you must understand how one feels when they lose such person they already have; being alive without their person is already a burden for them.
This might be my overthinking on a good song which just expresses how one feels when they lose their loved ones and how they consider their life completely meaningless in such cases. As the ability of words to express the exact emotions is practically limited and very subjective; whatever I have written may be meaningless to many and meaningful to a few or no one.
I think we are very great at understanding our happy, feel-good emotions and we are masters of enjoying such emotions but when it comes to the negative, grievous, melancholic emotions we fail to acknowledge them many times. I understand that such very intimate and highly personal losses are incomparable to anything, anyone in the world but awareness, acknowledgement of such emotions surely helps the person to justify meanings to their lives in newer ways because life itself represents boundless ocean of opportunities/ possibilities. Who knows someone might be needing exactly the same person you are. That surely will help the both sides. And that truly justifies we – the human beings as social animals (in a way). That is why songs expressing such emotions are very important.
Parts Per Billion 