Best Songs of 2010 – Honorable Mentions
After three strong albums to start their career, English trio Keane released the experimental EP Night Train in 2010. Recorded while on tour in several different cities, the EP contained collaborations with international rappers and MCs.
Today’s track, ‘Stop For a Minute,’ features Somali rapper-singer-poet K’NAAN who trades verses with lead singer Ben Chaplin and raps toward the end of the song.
I love Chaplin’s voice (he even earned a spot on my list of favorite male singers) and don’t think he needs to share the mic with anybody, but the interplay of his voice with K’NAAN’s really works in this song.
Feel I’m floating high above me
Like I’m looking down upon me
Start sinking, every time I get to thinking
It’s easier to keep on moving
Never stop to let the truth in
Sometimes I feel like it’s all been done
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one
Sometimes I wanna change everything I’ve ever done
Too tired to fight and yet too scared to run
And if I stop for a minute
I think about things I really don’t wanna know
And I’m the first to admit it
Without you I’m a liner stranded in an ice floe
I feel like I’m a thief who has no faith
Maybe more than by the grade
Of the drugs you took that day
Sinking in the pain he’s been inflicting
Yet he’s feeling like the victim
Just a horoscope’s to blame
Sometimes I feel like a little lost child
Sometimes I feel like the chosen one
Sometimes I wanna shout out ’til everything goes quiet
Sometimes I wonder why I was ever born
And if I stop for a minute
I think about things really I don’t wanna know
And I’m the first to admit it
Without you I’m child and so wherever you go
I will follow
(rap)
One… yeah…
And baby you are just beautiful from crown to your cuticles
You held down my two sons, you never frown when duty calls
You know me, I gave you more than you can handle
But you still keep a handle on it, even when I take something beautiful and vandal on it
No more females? Well how come my emails got notes on a scandal
It’s like Eve with the apple,
A priest in the chapel
Overcome by the devil’s tackle
I’m still shackling the bad til I know
I’m such a hassle every time I let my thoughts go
I get baffled so I hardly pause
I just crossed seas with these gnarly broads
Cos it hurts me just to see what I finally lost
So I guess I’m just a fiend
Consumed by the scene
The stage and the screens
Where it’s just me and Keane
And if I stop for a minute
I think about things I really don’t wanna know
So I guess I’m just a fiend
Consumed by the scene
And I’m the first to admit it
Without you I’m a liner stranded in an ice floe
The stage and the screens
Where it’s just me and Keane
Meet Me In Montauk 
I’ve always hated Somali rappers, but I may now have to reconsider after hearing this guy.