The Churned – Forever

“We’re not doing this, it’s not a proper song.”

Tim: Let’s get the inevitable bit out of the way: you’ll say ‘we’re not doing this, it’s not a proper song’, I’ll say ‘yes it is, it got on the iTunes charts and everything’, you’ll say ‘but it’s an advert, it was only written to sell stuff’, I’ll say ‘a cynic might say that that’s all popular music is these days – just there to make money’, you’ll (rightly) point out that it really shouldn’t be that way and that music is around for people to listen to and enjoy, and I shall say ‘yes, exactly,’ and before you can say ‘wait, what?’ we’ll be listening to this and enjoying it.

Tom: No, we won’t. Because today, the part of Tom Scott is being played by Spacey, the Incoherent Badly-Informed Anti-Capitalist Protester Hand Puppet.

Tim: What?

Tom: WHAT DO WE WANT? NOW! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!

Tim: Oh, Christ.

Tom: We’ll hear more from Spacey in a moment.

Tim: Brilliant.

Tim: So, I’ll admit I have become a bit obsessed with this recently; the full-length version you see above was, in fact, one of the highlights of the first of this year’s X Factor live shows (it’s really not a great year), and I won’t deny the mere possibility of even the thirty second cut makes the myriad advert breaks somewhat bearable. It was made for that show, and it is better than that show.

Tom: SMASH THE SYSTEM! THE CORPORATE TROUGH WILL NOT FEED THESE CHICKENS ANY MORE!

Tim: No, erm, Spacey, is it? No, it won’t.

The key change is one of those that makes you think ‘I can’t believe they’re trying to get away with that’ and then creates a big smile. I’m not so keen on the heavy disjoint between the ‘A36-‘ and ‘-8’; part of me thinks it might have been better if it was pronounced sixty-eight, with the -ty coming gently underneath the big fantastic moo, but the moo does in fact make up for it.

Tom: BANKERS OUT! BANKERS OUT! DON’T ELECT THE ADVERTISING WHORES!

Tim: Okaaay. Moving on, I also love the image of them feeding milk to the cows; I’m not a farmer so I have no idea if that actually happens, but I think it’s nice. So, in fact, is the whole story in the song about happy farmers (and, indeed, happy Fresians) – it’s just a great cheerful two minutes.

Tom: WE SHALL NOT! WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED! WE SHALL NOT! WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED!

Tim: The one thing that really does annoy me a bit (aside from having to discuss this with a hand puppet) is the chorus dance thing, when they get the N (to go with Naturally) the wrong way round each time, although I suppose it is the right way round from their view, so I’ll let that pass. Finally, though, just to show we’re not actually trying to advertise the product in question, we should note that other ridiculously over the top yogurt adverts are available.

Tom: NO MORE CORPORATIONS! NO MORE… HOLD ON, SOMEONE’S JUST BBM’D ME.

Tim: Ooh. I think this is what here passes for political commentary. It’s also why we generally stick to music.

Tom: If you stick to music, so will I – but this ain’t music.

Tim: LIES. It’s beautiful, heart-warming music, and must be appreciated as such.