Broken Toy

"Broken Toy" is the 11th and penultimate track of Keane's 2nd studio album, Under the Iron Sea.

Composition
Broken Toy is the longest song on the Under the Iron Sea by a wide margin, boasting a length of over 6 minutes. It is also the furthest deviation from Keane's typical song structures.

The song begins in the key of G Harmonic Minor, with an immediate power intro much like in Nothing in My Way and Put It Behind You from the same album. Its introduction is led by a powerful leading bassline, and characterized by an unorthodox 3/4 swung time signature, along with a distinctive siren-esque synth motif, neither factors of which feature in any other song on the album. It shares a dark, ominous vibe with songs like Atlantic and The Iron Sea, however it vastly differs in tempo, sitting at around 120 BPM, which is much faster than the two aforementioned tracks.

When the song enters the first verse, the key transitions from G Harmonic Minor to G Major, giving it a brighter mood, and Tom Chaplin's vocals enter, while the bass guitar and sweeping synth lines are dropped, leaving only the piano chords and the consistent bass drum beat to accompany the vocal line. The song also shifts into a more unconventional 3 bar progression, making it 9 beats long as opposed to the usual 6 or 12.

The first chorus embraces a darker tone, taking chords from both the major and minor keys, while also introducing Tim Rice-Oxley's signature distorted Yamaha CP70 riffage. As it leads into the second verse, the drumbeat completely drops out for the only time in the song, to prepare for the second verse.

The second verse resumes the song's bright and upbeat sound, but reintroduces the bassline and drum riff back into the mix, followed up with a spacey/twinkly descending piano line that leads into the second chorus. The looming fade-in of Rice-Oxley's guitar-like keyboard texture can also be heard.

The second chorus delivers an enormous burst of energy, leaving the peaceful and twinkly vibe of the verses and diving into a wave of fuzzy keyboard lines accompanied by an aggressive driving bassline.

The song then embarks on a great departure, shifting key enormously from G Major to B-flat Major, as a method of setting up the tone shift from the chorus into the following long meandering ambient bridge section, where it transitions back into the original G Harmonic Minor key from the intro of the song, and resuming the characteristic droning, siren-like motif, succeeded by a sharp piercing high-octave solo from Rice-Oxley, largely resembling a shredding guitar solo. Leading into the end of the atmospheric bridge section, Tom Chaplin's howling falsetto can be heard in the background as the intricate drum track performed by Richard Hughes reaches a crescendo.

For the final chorus, the length is extended to accommodate an extra line of lyrics (shown below), and the song then ends with the previous delicate descending piano progression, which is submerged underneath a wall of guitar-like keyboard noise. The song concludes on an encapsulating and bright mood, back in the upbeat key of G Major, enveloping the listener in a blanket of Keane atmosphere.

Background
The song was written by August 2005, on the 30th of which he recorded the original demo of the song, tuned a whole step down compared to the completed album version. The demo is roughly 25 seconds shorter than the completed version, missing the noise wall outro (this demo can be found on the Deluxe Version of Under the Iron Sea, along with 8 other Under the Iron Sea demos and live performances of 3 of the songs before they were officially released).

According to Tim Rice-Oxley himself, the song is about his strained relationship at the time with Tom Chaplin.

"Broken Toy I really love, probably because it came together so quickly, and was really easy(!). But that’s definitely a song about … well, it’s particularly a song about the relationship between me and Tom. We’ve known each other our whole lives and we’ve always had a very ‘brotherly’ relationship, and that yields all sorts of great positive things, but it also occasionally tips over into sort of bad things because you know how to cut each other more deeply than anyone else does. It’s just a way of confronting that, I suppose – just the fact that our friendships were changing. I guess it’s a plea to try to cling onto that and not just let it slip away and not do anything about it until it’s too late. It’s a very explicit way of dealing with that, and I think it’s quite a good example of how the album was for us; when you can’t even talk about those things in normal everyday life, it’s quite hard to be singing about them in a song, but I guess it’s just our weird way of dealing with things(!)."

Lyrics
[Verse 1] I think you know, because it's old news The people you love, are hard to find So I think if I, were in your shoes I would be kind

[Chorus 1] I look out for you Come rain come shine What good does it do? I guess I'm a toy that is broken I guess we're just older now

[Verse 2] I want to stay, another season See summer upon, this sorry land So don't dust off your gun, without a reason, you understand

[Chorus 2] I look out for you Come rain come shine What good does it do? I guess I'm a toy that is broken I guess we're just older now

[Bridge] Who says a river can't leave its waters? Who says you walk in a line? Who says a city can't change its borders? Who says you're mine?

[Instrumental break] No one Oooooooooooh Ahhhhhhhhhhh Oooooooooooh Ahhhhhhhhhhh

[Chorus 3] I look out for you Come rain come shine What good does it do? I guess I'm a record you're tired of I guess we're just older now I guess I'm a toy that is broken I guess we're just older now