Just writing that little word sent a shiver down my spine, as it brought to mind the fact that I haven’t had a key to my own front door for three months now, since making the naive mistake of lending it to a key member of my family, who – how can I put this? – has a different philosophical approach to keys and knowing where they put them.
To begin with I found not having a key to my own front door strangely liberating – rather like losing your watch and having to guess at the time by the position of the sun or the playing of God Gave Rock and Roll To You on Absolute Radio. For a few days it felt like a welcome return to simpler times, the Stone Age I guess, when there were no keys and you didn’t have to worry about someone walking in and nicking your stereo, because there were no stereos, nor any Absolute Radio to turn off whenever they played Kiss at the same time every single day.
I’m not one for sweeping statements but God Gave Rock and Roll To You has to be the worst song ever recorded (with the possible exception of everything else by Kiss) and this is how I know: in addition to the dragging rhythm, the maudlin melody and the ludicrous lyrics – “It’s never too late to work 9 to 5” Yeah? Try that one on the boss next time you stroll in at 10 o’clock – it features a change of key – sadly not the one they should have locked Kiss up with and thrown away decades ago.
As everybody knows, a key change is the hallmark of a song that’s run out of steam. It’s the musical equivalent of grating cheese on thin soup, the last concerted effort of pushing sand uphill, the tedious child shouting, “Look at me, Mummy, look at me!” Take Whitney Houston’s version of I Will Always Love You. A beautiful song in the hands of Dolly Parton, but Whitney had to put a key change in it because she shot her bolt too early and was in danger of doing a Devon Lock. Having burst her lungs on the previous chorus, she cracked the whip and burst them again, this time a bit further up the scale. Impressive from a physiological point of view, perhaps, but I don’t listen to music for that, I watch Mo Farah.
So you’ve got your door key and you’ve got your musical key, you’ve also got your piano or typewriter keys, your key to a code or map, your key on a basketball court, your key that creates a bond between coats or holds together stonework and, the obvious one of course, your fruit of the ash or elm tree.
Then there are the verbs ‘to key’, mostly based on the nouns above, and last but by no means least, your adjectival key, meaning crucially important – a key word in the English language, but grossly overused these days, according to a client of mine, with whom I have to agree (and not just because he’s a client of mine).
Key considerations, key selling points, key messages, key topics, key metrics, key customers, key personnel, keywords, key projects, keystone cops…
Key has joined passion and strategy in the labour camp of marketingspeak, where good words are locked in and flogged until their very essence drains out of them and they are rendered inert and meaningless. Aren’t you tired of being told by businesses how they’re ‘passionate’ about what they do? I read this the other day: “We’re passionate about cement”. Need I say more?
And aren’t you bowled over by all the clever businesses that “take a strategic approach…”? As if ‘strategy’ (aka ‘putting a bit of thought into it’) was some newfangled technology that only the enlightened few know how to use. Who are you kidding? I’m sure I recall reading that Julius Caesar knew a bit about strategy. And look what happened to him.
Stop me. I’m getting wound up.
That’s what happens when you’ve spent half an hour outside your own front door waiting for someone to come home and let you in.
For key guidance in compiling your key messages, key in ‘balance’ today!
