Music / Nik Kershaw

"Near a tree by a river there's a hole in the ground,
Where an old man of Aran goes around and around,
And his mind is a beacon in the veil of the night,
For a strange kind of fashion there's a wrong and a right,
But he'll never, never fight over you."

"The Riddle"

Nicholas David "Nik" Kershaw (born 1 March 1958) is a British pop star mainly associated with The '80s, though he's still in the business today. He's also a gifted songwriter who's written for Chesney Hawkes and Let Loose and has worked on film soundtracks as well. He's released eight albums over his career:

• Human Racing (1984)
• The Riddle (1984)
• Radio Musicola (1986)
• The Works (1989)
• 15 Minutes (1999)
• To Be Frank (2001)
• You've Got to Laugh (2006)
• EI8HT (2012)

No relation to Sammy Kershaw.

Tropes associated with Nik Kershaw:

• Cut Song: "Wide Boy" was on Human Racing's master tape, but cut for time reasons and included on "The Riddle" instead. This is very obvious in its production sound.
• Literary Allusion Title: "Don Quixote".
• Protest Song: numerous examples, some straightforward and some less so. An incomplete list is on the trope page.
• Remake Cameo: Played keyboards on Ozymi lyudy, cover version (minus lyrics) of The Riddle by Ukrainian band Skryabin.
• Shout-Out: The video for "Wouldn't It Be Good" contains plot points and visual motifs from The Man Who Fell to Earth.
• Surreal Music Video: Befitting the nonsensical lyrics, "The Riddle".
• Word Salad Lyrics: "The Riddle", consisting of "guide lyrics" that Kershaw was unable to improve on. To Kershaw's dismay, MCA launched a competition to decipher the lyrics, only for Kershaw himself to be unable to respond to the speculation or debunk MCA's assertion that the lyrics were anything other than gibberish and later describe them as "nonsense, rubbish, bollocks, the confused ramblings of an 80's popstar".