The power of lyrics can stop you
in your tracks. That happened to me the other day. Having loved Lana del Rey’s
“Born to die” album I was excited to see what she would come up with on her
next release “Born to die – Paradise Edition”. I gave it a listen and the
opening line of one of the tracks made me react the same way as when I first heard
that Liverpool Football club had agreed a transfer for Andy Carroll with
Newcastle United for £35,000,000 – a real “did-I-just-really-hear-that?”
moment. The kind that leads to body jerks and spilling of Earl Grey tea. True
story. Just in case your are wondering what the track is, it's "Cola"
Putting your lyrics out there really is putting
a part of yourself out there in many ways. Something which you can’t take back,
ever. Something which, however well you structure your lyrics, people are going
to recant your lyrics in all sorts of ways and interpret them, analyse them and sing them how they please.
If you are lucky enough, you may be honoured a cover version or two. For
everything negative that can come with it, the feeling you get when you hear
people singing or whistling something you came up is not far off priceless. What you must feel
when you hear a whole stadium sing back to you a song you wrote – I can’t think
of a higher moment than that for a song-writer That said, there is a risk you
take when you let one of your songs out publically:, that it may be received in
a way that don’t wish it to be received. So I respect and understand the
occasional explicit lyrics. It makes things clear, kinda like lyrical
exclamation marks.
When I say explicit I mean explicit
in terms of being crystal clear and unambiguous, not necessarily offensive
content. Of the many things I learnt on a song-writers program in Valencia,
Spain recently, one was that your best work is going to come out of “writing
and singing your truth”. My aim is to write and deliver songs which are emotive
with a splash of explicit lyrics - without the expletives. I'm working on the mantra of, "if I won't say it, I won't sing it/write it". Hence not swearing or using expletives in songs. Thankfully, I've got a lot to say and have a lot of material from other people to write music about so I won't be short on content - original or otherwise.
5 days go to!
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