A CAUTIONARY TALE

Mikka was a dancing bear. He was a wonderful dancing bear, and people would come to see him, and throw money, ensuring he lived at a standard of luxury unknown to other bears, even those within the showbiz industry.

But one day, Mikka was sad.

"I am tired of always dancing, always the same moves," he sighed, "I shall try something new."

And so Mikka created a new act, built around interpretative mime. But the people were not pleased.

"Do your dance, Mikka," they cried.

"Do not stifle me as an artist!" roared Mikka, pretending to be walking against the wind.

So the people decided to do as Mikka wished, and did not stifle him as an artist. The crowds thinned out, the money thrown got less and less, until one day Mikka's agent decided he could allow this to go on no longer, and recast Mikka as a rug in his offices.

Think of the story of Mikka as you discover that David Gray is refusing to play Babylon on his current tour - instead, he's doing, um, all those other great songs that he's known for. Like... um, well, the other ones. He can't emote, you see:

"I only want to sing things that I can feel and if I don't have a feeling for a song ... then I'll pass it over," Gray said in an interview on Wednesday. "Babylon is not very alive for me at the moment.

"It killed me. I try to resuscitate from time to time, but how many times did I have to play that thing -- 10 times a day, 300 days a year in all kinds of garish situations."

Now, we can understand him being heartily sick of it - we were, and we were able to switch the television off when it came on - but since a large portion of his audience are already going to be disappointed when they discover that the bloke who does You're Beautiful is a different chap altogether, it's a risky game to not play your signature tune. Maybe if he's looking for the feeling, he should picture all the cheques that come in for that song. Better to play it now, in a headline show, than to be reduced to doing it on a hasbeens gameshow on ITV in five years...

music david gray