“You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart; imagine my heartbeat when you are in this state.”
“Each of us has his own way of emerging from the underworld, mine is by writing. That’s why the only way I can keep going, if at all, is by writing, not through rest and sleep. I am far more likely to achieve peace of mind through writing than the capacity to write through peace.”
Franz Kafka
Letters to Felice
Every day I wake up and it’s Sunday
Whatever’s in my eye won’t go away
The radio is playing all the usual
And what’s a Wonderwall anyway
Because my inside is outside
My right side’s on the left side
‘Cause I’m writing to reach you now but
I might never reach you, only want to teach you
About you but that’s not you
It’s good to know that you are home for Christmas
It’s good to know that you are doing well
It’s good to know that you all know I’m hurting
It’s good to know I’m feeling not so well
Because my inside is outside
My right side’s on the left side
‘Cause I’m writing to reach you now but
I might never reach you, only want to teach you
About you but that’s not you
Do you know it’s true but that won’t do
Maybe then tomorrow will be Monday
And whatever’s in my eye should go away
But still the radio keeps playing all the usual
And what’s a Wonderwall anyway
Because my inside is outside
My right side’s on the left side
‘Cause I’m writing to reach you now but
I might never reach you, only want to teach you
About you but that’s not you
Do you know it’s true but that won’t do
And you know it’s you I’m talking to
The song was written by Fran Healy, who admitted that he took the guitar chords from Oasis‘ Wonderwall; as an overt acknowledgement of this, the song contains the lyric “and what’s a wonderwall, anyway?”. In 2004, both Writing to Reach You and Wonderwall were mixed with Green Day‘s Boulevard of Broken Dreams in the popular mash up, Boulevard of Broken Songs,Boulevard of Broken Songs by San Francisco, California DJ and producer Party Ben.
As Fran Healy stated:
“Writing To Reach You was actually inspired by Franz Kafka’s Letters To Felice. He wrote to this woman he was in love with hundreds of times, yet never met her. None of her replies are in the book, so you have to piece together their relationship. I was reading that one day, and Wonderwall came on the radio. I nicked the chords, then changed the rhythm and the melody. I’m pleased we managed to draw on Kafka and Oasis in the same song.”