It'll never work, Sean

There was a reggae song on the radio a little while ago: “You're way too beautiful girl, That's why it'll never work,” it starts.

With a couple of splashes of vocoda and a baseline borrowed from Stand by Me, Sean Kingston’s Beautiful Girls sounds quite jolly, until the next line – “You'll have me suicidal, suicidal, When you say it's over.”

Suicidal? Are you sure? Kingston doesn’t sound suicidal, he sounds bored and a bit whiny.

The use of the word suicidal annoys me in so many ways. I hate the casual way he just throws it in, like it’s a choice between that and nipping round the shops for a pint of milk. It’s so bloody unsubtle. If he really were suicidal he wouldn’t be saying so, neither would he be listening to Ben E King. It annoys me that it makes me come over all PC – but I think it really cheapens the word.

It also gets to me because it’s been done so much better – even Celine Dion sounds moving: “I can’t live, if living is without you.”

But for “you’re so wonderful I’d rather die than be on my own” sentiment, the bittersweet Smiths do it best: “If a double-decker bus, crashes into us. To die by your side, well the pleasure, the privilege is mine."