I can think of two reasons why someone might say “Take me to the pilot”. Either they have a gun to your head and are about to hijack the plane, or the pilot has collapsed, and they are offering to land the aircraft safely. You would have thought that Elton John and Bernie Taupin would be able to provide a third possibility, as that was also the title of one of their songs, but those lyrics are a mystery even to them.

What, then, can we make of St. Etienne‘s recent single, Take Me To The Pilot? Well, for a start, it’s not a cover of the Elton John track; it’s far better than that. The words are no more meaningful, but the music has a strong dance floor pulse and Sarah Cracknell’s voice is so much sweeter than the Rocketman’s.

Or is there another explanation for that unusual request? Could we, perhaps, be witnessing an alien invasion? A space battle cruiser has landed and little green men are coming to take over the Earth. But their AI software, trained on life on other planets, has assumed our world is a hostile spacecraft and mis-translated “take me to your leader”.