Karen
by Mika

Album: Origin of Love (French deluxe edition) (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song opens the French deluxe edition bonus disc of Mika's third album, Origin Of Love. He penned the tune with his French songwriter friend, Doriand. Mika explained on his track-by-track video how this it was inspired by a girl they met in a bar: "One night we went out together," he recalled, "and we were at the Musée Grévin, because they had put up my statue at the Musée Grévin, and Doriand came to see the 2 versions of me, the real version and the wax one, and after that we thought 'ok it's a bit ridiculous what's happening...', we found it very funny, we went to have some drinks after the ceremony in a small bar 'Le Bistrot 82'. It still exists of course, it was just one year ago, it's on the Rue des Martyrs in Montmartre and it's next door to another bar 'Chez Michou'."

    We went there it was 1 or 1.30am," continued Mika, "we sat down, it was almost empty, and suddenly people started coming in, it's really a night bar that closes very early in the morning. There's a girl who came in, she was called Karen, she was very nice, quite funny, and she started talking to me, and suddenly she started drinking, and drank more and more and more... One hour later she was leaving the bar completely drunk. And in the 60 minutes we spent together she told me her whole story, her life from beginning to that point where I met her. She had a son I think, a whole drama, she was quite astonishing. And Doriand and I looked at each other and thought 'ok it's clear her life is a song', we're going to take this experience and translate it into a melody which I wrote. I wrote the melody with lyrics in English, I sent it to Doriand and Doriand wrote the lyrics, then we went to La Fabrique in South of France and we made this demo."

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