Natasha Bedingfield

Easily the less irritating of the famous Bedingfield dynasty (which isn't really a contest when your opposition is as ball-bustingly annoying as Daniel Bedingfield), Natasha Bedingfield had a smattering of top 10 hits in the mid - 2000s, the most famous of which being 'These Words', a strangely paradoxical track which is basically a catchy pop song about her inability to write a catchy pop single. And let's make no mistake, These Words is a catchy pop single. The video for the track sees Natasha hack away at some flowers with a pair of scissors, sit on a massive pile of books and torture a poor young man by launching massive yellow rocks at his head from a rooftop. Quite how this helps her to write her song is unclear, but she certainly seems to be enjoying herself. Does the plate of one slice of cucumber carry some sort of subliminal message about female pop stars being unable to eat so they stay thin? Probably not.

A second video for These Words was also made, presumably for American audiences, and is shot in a way to make it seem very organic and real, starting as it does with grainy footage of Natasha brushing her teeth and sneezing, with the sneeze even rendered important enough to stop the music for a few seconds and let the gravity of what we just saw (which was a 4 second clip of A WOMAN SNEEZING AND THEN GRABBING A TISSUE) sink in..... Real deep. Natasha, who seems to be living in a Rio favela, gets on a bus and hollers away like a lunatic on valium, which sharply contrasts with the utter dejection written on the faces of her fellow passengers. Natasha then stands on the sidewalk and hollers away while everyone in the immediate vicinity stubbornly ignores her. Frustrated, Natasha kicks her hi-fi, causing it to sprout legs and a hat and seemingly become sentient, as seen below;



Unhinged mania ensues! A passer-by is overcome by the desire to spin on his head as another walking hi-fi appears, to the delight of the gathering audience. Natasha smugly departs, her hat now heavy with scarcely-earned cash, pursued by some angry looking street punk. Quite what he is pissed at is unclear, but his bad-ass demeanour suggests he is about to open a can of whoop-ass. Before said can is opened, another sentient hi-fi appears and takes him out, much to the amusement of some fellow street punks. Natasha continues her stroll around town and picks up a few more hi-fi stragglers. An old man throws a broom at her. And that is that.

A couple of nondescript ballads followed, then Natasha dissapeared for a while, before returning in 2007 with the downright sinister 'I Wanna Have Your Babies' in which a broody/demented Natasha sends a countless number of men running away in terror by announcing her intention to have a shitload of babies, like, right fucking now. It's likely that the idea behind this track was to play on the idea that most women, Natasha included, want to have babies and the pressures involved with finding a suitable partner and starting a family, but it backfires massively. Rather than coming across as a woman who wants to settle down with her prince and live happily ever after, it seems just as likely that Natasha would sneak into a hospital nursery ward at night and just take whichever baby took her fancy. Don't believe me? Here is a line from the song which confirms beyond all reasonable doubt that Natasha Bedingfield is a nutcase;

"Trust me it would scare you if you knew what was goin' on in my brain
Trust me it would scare you that I've picked out the church all the schools all the names
If you knew it was all about you, every wish, every candle, every coin in a fountain
Trust me it would scare you"

That is some sinister shit right there. Natasha has been pretty quiet since this track. She collaborated with Sean Kingston on some forgettable single or another, and has admirably thrown herself into charity commitments and the occasional acting role. A recent single, 'Touch', was released in the USA and Canada, and a new album is in the pipeline also.

Natasha Bedingfield on Last FM