Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Michael’ is a song about a guy wanting to make out with the titular character. The chorus gets quite descriptive about how he wants to do so. I could see why people could get turned off by it, because some people are just like that. They don’t like the gay. I’ve always enjoyed just because… I mean, it’s just a good song. It’s hard not to sing along to even knowing what it’s about. A lot of times for me the subject of the song is irrelevant initially, but the delivery always matters. And the delivery here is killer.

Those guitar lines that start the track straight away will grab anyone’s attention.Hook’s good, those verses are sweet. Great vocal take by Alex Kapranos, he’s got that sensual thing going at some points with a more direct approach during the choruses. And former guitarist Nick McCarthy sings this countermelody during those; I can’t tell what he’s singing. “Hey yooou/Heyy ???”. Still trying to figure it out to this day. More often than not, I sing along to that more than Kapranos’ bit.

Some time last year I found myself repeatedly watching its music video. I went on a little Franz Ferdinand binge for a bit after the band had a Twitter listening party for their first album. Now, I was alive and kicking when this track was released as a single back in 2004 and its video was being shown on MTV2 and stuff. But I was never as creeped out by it as I am now having properly watched it. Why does Michael have his arm yanked off near the end? Why do the band grow all these extra limbs? Which head of Nick McCarthy’s am I meant to be looking at? The one on the left looks lifeless, but for split seconds it raises its eyebrows and mimes the lyrics. A really random ending to a video that seemed quite harmless for the majority. It still manages to capture the manic delivery of the song’s ending itself, which is probably my favorite part. Kapranos goes crazy in that last minute.