UTIS week: the wandering soldier - KEANE

UTIS week: the wandering soldier 15 June 2011

Back in 2006, when Under The Iron Sea was released, we asked km.com readers to take their Is It Any Wonder? sleeve or soldier promo card somewhere interesting and snap a picture of it. Literally hundreds of people did, and Keane picked their favourites. These pictures disappeared with the old website several years ago, so we thought we’d post them as part of our UTIS 5th birthday week, alongside the video of the song that inspired the contest.

This is what Tim had to say about the contest…

Hello everyone. Thanks for your brilliant efforts with the ‘Is It Any Wonder?’picture competition. You’re a well-travelled and imaginative bunch!

The image of the downcast soldier is a very important one in the story of ‘Under The Iron Sea’, and it embodies several ideas that mean a huge amount to us. As you may know, the cathedral mentioned in Is It Any Wonder? is Köln (Cologne) cathedral in Germany, and so the simplicity of Simone’s photo with the ‘soldier’ single sleeve in front of that very cathedral seemed very powerful.

The photo of multiple life-size cut-outs going about their business on a London street is great. For humour value, surreal-ness and the sheer amount of effort involved, we had to choose Angela’s one too.

Thanks again to everyone who sent us photos – they were all fantastic. And, of course, thanks for your help in making ‘Under The Iron Sea’ such a success. See you soon!

Tim

WINNER ONE (won a signed album)

‘Outside Cologne Cathedral’ by Simone Dietrich