2007 Round Up: Kate Nash — Foundations

Dec 6, 2007 · 2 minute read

Those pitchforks. You can put them down. Honest.

Having said that, I've been trying to get my head around this song all year. Nash herself comes across as a hideous creation by a music industry eager to replicate Lily Allen's success in 2006, softening the hard 'street' edges by mixing in a dollop of stage school, a touch of Tori Amos kookiness, and strapping on Audrey Hepburn's accent at the start of My Fair Lady.

"Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!

It doesn't work. For example, while LDN offsets the rather bleak picture of London by having Lily seeing the optimistic side of things until they're brutally disabused (although the denouement is only really clear if you watch the video), Foundations features a hateful couple that you'd rather set on fire than listen to Kate whine on about their troubles for another three minutes.

Your face is pasty 'cause you've gone and got so wasted, what a surprise. Don't want to look at your face 'cause it's makin' me sick. You've gone and got sick on my trainers, I only got these yesterday.

Never has You are the generation that bought more shoes and you get what you deserve made more sense. Especially since it's all delivered in an accent that makes you want to stick knitting needles into your eardrums to make the pain stop. The 'bitter / fitter' rhyme in itself makes me want to smash the radio in.

And yet.

The chorus. My fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation / and I know that I should let go but I can't. There's something about this, something wonderful and tragic about desperately holding on, because what if this is all there is? Is this the best I can do? Is this the best any of us can do? And you kind of fall for her a bit here. Happily, that's resolved by the lingering hard t on the end of 'can't' which makes you head for the hammers again. But for that brief moment, it's a wonderful song.

Being a bit slack this year, it seems. Hopefully the pace will pick up next week...