Nine Million Bicycles [SEP] performer
Nine Million Bicycles
"Nine Million Bicycles" is a song written and produced by Mike Batt for the singer Katie Melua's second album, "Piece by Piece". It was released as the album's first single in September 2005 and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Melua's first top five hit as a solo artist. It was a finalist for The Record of the Year prize, losing to "You Raise Me Up" by Westlife.
Background.
According to Melua, the inspiration
for the song came during a visit to Beijing with her manager Mike Batt. Their interpreter showed them around the city and told that there are supposedly nine million bicycles in the city. Batt wrote a song based around the title "Nine Million Bicycles" after returning to England two weeks later, and it was one of the last songs to be recorded for "Piece by Piece". Adrian Brett, who played the ethnic flutes on Batt's album "Caravans" (1978), contributed to the song; an ocarina