I’ve been working with a singing client on a song for the past 4 weeks and the song has got stuck in my head. I’ve learned it on bass and been jamming with Rich on guitar. There’s something about the penultimate line in the song which has really grabbed me and I don’t know why. Bonus points to you if you can name the song and the artist…….
Other lyrics which have grabbed me and made me think include the lines
“I look in the sun and I look in the mirror, I’m on the right track yeah I’m on to a winner” from Lily Allen’s “The Fear”.
For a while I had it wrong. I thought she was looking at the sun (in the sky) and the mirror (on the wall) at her own reflection to see her true self, but having read her book, I realised she was talking about the tabloid press. It put a total different slant on it for me – it went from poetic to cynical and made me feel a bit sad. Don’t get me wrong, I still think she has great song writing skills and love her music, but it was like hearing something familiar in a different way which was a shock.
As a teenager, my friend’s mother could never understand the fascination with us listening to a song about Alsatians (house nation) and I always thought that the song “Big Mac fries to go” said “big black bicycle”. Perhaps that’s why I listen more carefully now and why it’;s a good idea to look at what you’re actually singing in real printed words.
We had an awful moment recently at choir where I decided to get our pub audience to join in singing “Come on Eileen” at the end of a gig. I dutifully printed the lyrics and ran through it in rehearsal. It was pointed out to me that it supports everyday sexism and rape culture…. we didn’t sing it again.
But more often than not, there is beauty and elegance in lyrics. “The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds cut out of the sun” has really made me happy today.
What lyrics have made you happy?
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