A song by Katie Melua

Katie Melua (b 1984) is a Georgian/British singer, songwriter and musician. She was born in Georgia, but moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then relocated to England at the age of 14. She made her musical debut in 2003 and by 2006 was the United Kingdom’s biggest-selling female artist and Europe’s highest selling European female artist. Her style of music ranges from jazz to blues to folk pop, and she is a mezzo-soprano. See if you like her voice!

Can you listen to the recording and supply the answers using words from the song? Try not to get distracted by the images! The questions are in chronological order!

1 How many bicycles are there in Beijing?
2 Is this statistic a guess or a fact?
3 What does the singer say we can’t deny?
4 How ‘near the edge’ (of space, of the known universe – or whatever that means) are we?
5 Is that statement a guess or a fact?
6 Why does Katie say that figure is a guess?
7 What does the singer ‘know’ that she cannot prove is true?
8 What does she not want someone to call her?
9 What does she ask this particular (unnamed or imaginary) person to believe?
10 What figure does Katie give for the number of people there are in the world?
11 Is that a rough guess or a precise number?
12 How does thinking about the size of the world’s population affect the singer?
13 What does she say about the (still unnamed) person out of all the people in the world?
14 Where are these two people?

Click here when you’re ready for the answers!