When I was dating a young lady a little more than a decade ago, this album was part of a birthday present that included a history book, another album from an artist I like, and a pair of American-flag patterned boxer shorts. Even more than a decade later, this album has a lot to offer in terms of being a soundtrack to times of great opportunity and crisis, which appear to be immensely frequent through the course of my life. Such is the case right now, where hopes and fears appear to be delicately balanced, depending on which part of life one is dealing with. Keane’s debut album is a reminder to us of the way in which we all are subject to complicated influences, and its general success indicates that Keane resonated at least a little bit with the American public, and even more so overseas, where it sold more than 2.7 albums in the UK and more than 5.8 million copies overall [1]. Now, for a track-by-track analysis:

Somewhere Only We Know – In 2014, I sang this song at the Tacoma Weekend, and it is a regular go-to karaoke track for me [2]. It is a song about a desire for a private place to talk with a loved one, and is full of anxiety about aging and the passage of time and loneliness and being fallen. It is a song that, sadly, reflects my own anxieties, in a lovely and melancholy piano ballad no less.

Bend And Break – This song manages to combine a sense of hope and fear, and also is an accurate barometer of my emotional state, expressing the hope that if the singer doesn’t bend or break in the dark night, that he expects to see his loved one in the morning, when she wakes up. It is a lovely song, but its hope has a dark undercurrent of worry, including worries about suffocation. Again, it is done in the form of a piano ballad.

We Might As Well Be Strangers – This soaring synth pop track is another one that painfully expresses my emotional state with regards to certain relationships. It expresses the frustration of someone who cares about someone who might as well be a stranger, whose thoughts and feelings are closed off and inaccessible. It is filled with the sense of loss at a relationship that was once close and is now, at best, occasional and perfunctory. Sadly, this is a feeling I know all too well.

Everybody’s Changing – One of the more successful singles from this album, this particular song is upbeat musically, but lyrically it is far more melancholy. The song talks of someone who feels stuck while everyone else is changing and moving forward, feeling different even if his state or status has not changed. Sadly, this is a feeling that I’m familiar with as well when it comes to life.

Your Eyes Open – This is a song that blends hope and fears in an odd way, expressing a desire not to get to know someone deeply until their eyes open and they know everything one wants them to know. There is a fear, in this circumstance, that others will not want anything to do with us once they know who we are; this song movingly describes a fear of intimacy even with a longing for it.

She Has No Time – This song is one I wish I didn’t relate to so well. It involves a man who thinks his life is a bit boring without love, and a girl who has no time for the guy who loves her, even if she needs him. The music adds to the sorrowful mood of the lyrics.

Can’t Stop Now – This is a song about impatience, about not being willing to wait for someone, which is a real shame, given that a lot of what we most want in life requires us to wait. The fact that the narrator is lonely but still refuses to wait for a beloved seems like an incredibly foolish move, but that’s how it works sometimes.

Sunshine – This is a song with a bright title, but very pensive lyrics about desiring to protect someone from harm and shield them from the storms of life, even as one struggles to feel at home anywhere. Like most of the rest of this album, this song and its complicated sentiments are something I can relate too very easily.

This Is The Last Time – This rather downcast song is about someone having reached a limit with a dysfunctional and unhappy relationship. It became a successful hit single, and sounds rather sweet and touching, even happy in terms of its music, slightly disguising the rather frustrated lyrics. Slightly.

On A Day Like Today – This song doesn’t leave a really strong impression, in contrast to the rest of the album, but it is a slow and melancholy song about dithering around and wasting time while never really saying one’s feelings about someone else, with somewhat predictable results.

Untitled 1 – This song, untitled, for some strange reason, ties back to Bend and Break, showing that the hope of seeing someone in the light was not realized. This song has a strong and notable bass line and instrument part in general, and even without a title it is a striking tune, if somewhat sad.

Bedshaped – This gloomy song has an epic scope, somewhat similar to “We Might As Well Be Strangers,” and features a very sad and creepy music video and it was a successful single in Great Britain. The moving melancholy of this song inspired a play of mine with its longing and its fear of loneliness and rejection. The title reflects old age and frailty.

No, this is not a happy album. Even if its title balances hopes and fears, the songs on the album are heavily slanted towards the melancholy, the anxious (especially about loneliness and aging), and the downcast. It would be nice if this album did not reflect my emotional state a fair amount of the time, but alas, it does. Additionally, this album was a template for many of the albums of Keane that followed, which all tended to mine veins of anxiety and melancholy, two factors that have long been connected in my own life, and the subject of much rumination.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopes_and_Fears

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/younger-now-than-we-were-then/