Nine Million Bicycles Explained

Nine Million Bicycles
Cover:Katie Melua - Nine Million Bicycles.JPG
Type:single
Artist:Katie Melua
Album:Piece by Piece
B-Side:"Market Day in Guernica", "Stardust"
Released:[1]
Label:Dramatico
Producer:Mike Batt
Prev Title:Crawling up a Hill
Prev Year:2004
Next Title:I Cried for You
Next Title2:Just like Heaven
Next Year:2005

"Nine Million Bicycles" is a song written and produced by Mike Batt for the singer Katie Melua's second album, Piece by Piece. It was released as the album's first single in September 2005 and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Melua's first top five hit as a solo artist. It was a finalist for The Record of the Year prize, losing to "You Raise Me Up" by Westlife.

Background

According to Melua, the inspiration for the song came during a visit to Beijing with her manager Mike Batt.[2] Their interpreter showed them around the city and told them that there are supposedly nine million bicycles in the city. Batt wrote a song based around the title "Nine Million Bicycles" after returning 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 a Chinese bamboo flute for the high sounds.[3]

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')".[3] 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".[4]

The single's music video, directed by Kevin Godley, shows Melua being dragged across the floor through a variety of settings, including a brief shot of the Summer Palace in Beijing, until she returns to a picnic in a park with her friends.

Alternative version

In 2005, Melua was criticised by writer and scientist Simon Singh[5] for inaccurate lyrics referring to the size of the observable universe ("We are 12 billion light-years from the edge. That's a guess — no one can ever say it's true"). Melua and Singh met, and Melua re-recorded a tongue-in-cheek version of the song for BBC Radio 4's Today program that had been written by Singh:

"We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe; that's a good estimate with well-defined error bars/and with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you".

Melua later said that she 'should have known better' as she used to be a member of the Astronomy club at school.[6]

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

Personnel

Production

Charts

Year-end charts

Chart (2005)Position
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[8] 17
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[9] 11
UK Singles (OCC)[10] 63
Chart (2006)Position
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[11] 42
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[12] 76
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[13] 91

Notes and References

  1. New Releases: Singles. Music Week. 27. 17 September 2005.
  2. What's Music Record 1993, no. WS-2052, in Mandarin
  3. Web site: Nine Million Bicycles . KatieMelua.com . 28 September 2006 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20061130232635/http://www.katiemelua.com/single3.html . 30 November 2006 .
  4. Web site: Foley, Jack . Hollie, Carnevale . amp . Katie Melua - Piece By Piece . indieLondon . 9 April 2006.
  5. News: Katie Melua's bad science . The Guardian . UK . 25 September 2012.
  6. News: How Katie put the science back into songwriting. Orr. James. 15 October 2005. The Daily Telegraph. 6 January 2020. en-GB. 0307-1235.
  7. Web site: The ARIA Report: European Top 20 Charts – Week Commencing 3rd October 2005. ARIA. 26. 3 October 2005. dead. https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20080222222439/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/23790/20051020-0000/issue814.pdf. 22 February 2008. 15 May 2022.
  8. Web site: Top 100–Jaaroverzicht van 2005. Dutch Top 40. 1 February 2020.
  9. Web site: Jaaroverzichten – Single 2005. MegaCharts. nl. 3 January 2020.
  10. Web site: End of Year Singles Chart Top 100 – 2005. Official Charts Company. 3 January 2020.
  11. Web site: Jaaroverzichten 2006. Ultratop. nl. 3 January 2020.
  12. Web site: Top 100–Jaaroverzicht van 2006. Dutch Top 40. 1 February 2020.
  13. Web site: Jaaroverzichten – Single 2006. MegaCharts. nl. 3 January 2020.