PROG ROCK ALLERGICS

Next week sees the release of Tinchy Stryder's latest single, Take Me Back. Despite Tinchy's background in grime, it is an unmistakeably pop-oriented piece of ear candy, destined to be 'rinsed' in rowdy youth clubs. Or the kind of central London establishments where one has the pleasure of paying two whole pounds to have one's jacket placed on a coathanger for a couple of hours.

Yes, it is a dancefloor beast and no mistake. But what of the lyrics? Are they comprised of happy-clappy, let's get brappy sentiments? No. Take Me Back, like many of the best pop tracks throughout history and beyond, combines hip-shaking sonic sweetness with a narrative of sadfacedness and woe.

And, like many sad pop tales, it is that little bastard called love what has caused the pain.

Hard-to-spell R&B singerman TAOI Taio Cruz sings the hook of Take Me Back, and what a lament-filled refrain it is:

Cos I can't live without ya, oh oh
(Girl I can't live without ya oh oh oh!)
Cos I can't live without ya oh oh)
(Girl I can't live without ya oh oh oh!)
Can you take ma back? (eh)
Can you take ma back? (eh)
Can you take ma back? (eh)
Can you take ma back? (eh)
Can you take ma back? (eh)
Can you take ma back? (eh)
Can you take ma back? (eh)
Can you take ma back? (eh)

But what of Tinchy himself? He say:

I need you back in my zone
Cos I actually feel I can't cope on my own

Mr. Stryder's 'zone' is lady-free. Then it goes back to TAOI Taio:

I'm sorry I misleaded you, pretty lady
I'm sorry I mistreated you, pretty lady
I'm sorry that I hurt you, pretty lady

Do you see? Taio is actually willing to break the laws of the English language to try and bid the safe return of 'Pretty Lady'. But then if there is anything that will get her attention, it is foregoing the grammatically correct 'misled' for the rawer, more visceral 'misleaded'. That is the Grammar of Pop for you.

After my twenty-seventh consecutive listen to Take Me Back, I decided I would assist Tinchy in his attempt to get Pretty Lady to take him back. Something in his video performance - his back to the camera, manfully hiding his pain, putting his hood up / putting his hood back down again - convinced me that he and TAOI Taio alone would not be enough for this particular case. But how could I help? 'Well, I work on the internet all day, don't I?' I said. 'Yes,' I said. 'Use that then,' I said. 'OK I will,' I said.

And I was as good as my word to myself.

First, I did what every indolent 'social media' layabout does in 2009 - I lazily put out a call on popular social networking site Twitter:

Incidentally, this is what other people on Twitter were concerning themselves with while I was embarking on this mission of the heart:

Yes, they were wandering around Vietnam ['Incredible, so much history' - Ed] and sitting in planes that have the ability to land. A sarcastic round of applause, if you please. This is why the country is in a state of economic crisis. But let us not concern ourselves with that just now. It also occurred to me that Tinchy could do with a little boost. The poor lad was clearly on the verge of giving up. And I was just not having that, frankly. So I went onto MySpace and asked to be his friend:

You'll notice I spoke in 'street' language. You probably won't understand what those words mean, but I knew he would, and that's the main thing. At this juncture I also realised it might be an idea to illustrate just which area Tinchy's zone covered, lest the public became confused by his (somewhat self-defeating) lyrical vagueness. Google Maps came in very handy for this:

You see, he comes from the London district of Bow, E3 as immortalised by Wiley here. If you have ever wondered why few rappers come from Kirkcudbright in Scotland, it is because 'Kirkcudbright, DG6' does not lend itself very well to an MC's lyrical flow.

A few days passed, and my optimism had waned. My Twitter followers had thrown up nothing, possibly because noticing the physical world around them and spotting Pretty Lady would have involved actually looking up from their iPhones for more than two seconds. Fortunately Tinchy had accepted my virtual friendship, but I could tell from his lack of communication that he was a soul in turmoil. So I switched to another social networking site to give him my best wishes and a little advice:

Indeed, I started to ponder whether I had perhaps underestimated the elusiveness of Pretty Lady. It occurred to me that in order to catch her, I had to think like the capricious flibbertigibbet. So after sourcing a wig, a bottle of gin and some ladyclothes from a nearby charity outlet, I imagined that I was a lady in a zone-leaving frame of mind. With my brain now femininely configured, I was able to indulge in some mind-mapping to help me organise my strategy:

In addition, I drew up my schedule for the next week or so, using an invaluable project management website:

And then I changed back into my normal clothes.

You'll notice in the above screenshot that I mention requesting more help. I'm not going to lie to you, by this point it had become apparent that Tinchy was unable to help himself. He had failed to respond to any of my advice, and his so-called friend TAOI Taio was nowhere to be seen. I could only assume that the loss of Pretty Lady had hit both men, quite literally, for six.

I was on my own. Undaunted, I went to Craigslist...

...HMV...

...before heading back to Facebook to appeal to my own 'friends':

To be sure, trying to engage the police in the hunt was a thankless task. In fact the way the desk sergeant spoke to me left me in no doubt as to why they are often referred to as 'the filth'. To give her her due, as she threw me out of the station she did scream something about 'f**king Gumtree'. Like most people, I have always assumed Gumtree to be a degenerate cesspool full of lonely Australians seeking a spot of anonymous casual sex. But as I was rapidly approaching the section of my tether marked 'end', I was willing to give it a shot:

By now, I was exhausted. I should point out here that I have also been searching for Lisa Stansfield's Baby since 1989 - I am not making excuses, merely alerting the reader. This kind of stuff takes its toll after a while. If I was to locate Tinchy's ladytoy, I needed to take some serious action. So I went to the very top:

Unfortunately, It was around this time that I had an embarrassing little episode due to stress and lack of sleep. Having gone back to Take Me Back's lyrics one more time, I had convinced myself that at one point, near the start of the track, Tinchy mentions 'cloud 9 stripes'. It is this bit, where he does a birdyflap movement with his hands:

Not quite feeling myself, I proceeded to paint a picture of a pillowcase featuring cloud 9 stripes, in the hope that it would uncover some secret clue:

All I can say about this is that it made sense at the time. But after some sleep and a Pot Mash I realised that the lyric actually goes 'cloud 9 strydes' - which makes even less sense and would definitely not become any clearer from being emblazoned across soft furnishings.

So, after all this effort, what results can I report? Sadly, like my Lisa Stansfield operation, I sense that success remains tantalisingly close. And yet teasingly, just out of reach. That might sound like a rather delicate way of saying 'no results whatsoever' to some people, but they are the kind of cynics who have brought the global banking system to its knees. So I would urge you to pay them no mind. Morever, I am forced to conclude that the hunt for Tinchy Stryder's Pretty Lady remains a work in progress, rather like life itself. Life, of course, has also been compared to a rollercoaster. And what has a rollercoaster been likened to? Love. A love rollercoaster.

And that is where we shall leave it.

[READERS, IF YOU HAVE SEEN TINCHY STRYDER'S WOMAN OR WOULD TO HELP US FIND HER, EMAIL US ON CRAPATTHELIPSTERDOTCOM. THANK YOU]

Tinchy Stryder's "Take Me Back" is released on 19th January, and you can buy it here**

Tinchy Stryder on the internets

Writer Stuart Waterman on the internets. He has a larksome music blog called My Chemical Toilet, which we are sure you will enjoy.