Music blows lyrics up very quickly, and suddenly they become more than art. They become pompous and they become self-conscious ... I firmly believe that lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you not only have the music, but you've got costume, story, acting, orchestra. There's a lot to take in.
And now I know that you're the oneI've waited my whole life forYou're budding leaves turning green in springYou're the fresh breath of air that summer bringsYou're the autumn sky painted in rainbow huesYou're the wintry ocean dancing in shimmering bluesYou're the air I breahteYou're the water I drinkYou're the fire inside meThe earth under my feet You're the one
Cause I am strong and I can prove itAnd I got my dreams to see me throughIt's just a mountain, I can move itAnd with faith enough there's nothing I can't doAnd I can see the light of a clear blue morningAnd I can see the light of brand new dayI can see the light of a clear blue morningAnd everything's gonna be all rightIt's gonna be okay [lyrics from "Light of a Clear Blue Morning"]
I won't be stuck in traffic 'til I see how rugged my path isAnd right now I'm loving how fast my troubles are fastingNo they don't bother me oh realizing I'm psychopathicA wild beast, baby I'm gladly running afterYes a thing called peace outlasting any madnessThe devil fears me oh he's feelingLike a fragment of a fractionNo he won't come near me'Cause his hat trick's out of practice
Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, 'Life in the Fast Lane?' That's what they're saying right there? You think, 'why have I been singing 'wipe in the vaseline?' how many people have heard me sing 'wipe in the vaseline?' I am an idiot.
I’ve been trying to stay real and true and proud of who I am,all those ideals of how to lookI’ve been trying not to care.But I’m still holding my breath, I ‘m still watching every step.I’m still tip-toeing away, when I’m getting to ashamed of myself. I don’t want to be your letdown,I’m scared like hell I’m not enough.I don’t wanna beyour failure anymore.— The Glass Child, Letdown
This is how it works: you're young until you're not. You love until you don't, you try until you can't, you laugh until you cry, you cry until you laugh. And everyone must breathe until their dying breath. This is how it works: you peer inside yourself, you take the things you like and try to love the things you don't. And then you take that love you make and stick it into someone else's heart pumping someone else's blood.
I fall asleepCall it deep while all is well be-Cause my life seems like a freestyle mean-While asleep on the couch I dream it's a written piece and nowThe symphony's soundingShouting out to these feet whose leaps feel foul but quite loudBut howI'm allowed to live my dreamsMy Chimeran team brings the Siberian breedRiding reality free 'til these tires they freezeIn mires in dire need of wires, fire and heat butI love a dark, hard cold heart in the wintery breeze
I fell for her in summer, my lovely summer girl,From summer she is made, my lovely summer girl,I’d love to spend a winter with my lovely summer girl,But I’m never warm enough for my lovely summer girl,It’s summer when she smiles, I’m laughing like a child,It’s the summer of our lives; we’ll contain it for a whileShe holds the heat, the breeze of summer in the circle of her handI’d be happy with this summer if it’s all we ever had.
Concert pianists get to be quite chummy with dead composers. They can't help it. Classical music isn't just music. It's a personal diary. An uncensored confession in the dead of night. A baring of the soul. Take a modern example. Florence and the Machine? In the song 'Cosmic Love,' she catalogs the way in which the world has gone dark, distorting her, when she, a rather intense young woman, was left bereft by a love affair. 'The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out.
A steampunk nationBaby pollution rises up then the loving comes arraigning 'causeOur art's official and only partially artificialAnd our heart's in the middle of sharp hardened shards of metal butThere's not where it settlesBecause it's beating to the steaming of God's hottest pot or kettleAnd now we face it, this creation we made toTo save our craving for a synthetic rebelnation it'sOur safeway they make into a pathetic revelationIn our steampunk nationOur steampunk nation
I am no king, and I am no lord,And I am no soldier at-arms," said he."I'm none but a harper, and a very poor harper,That am come hither to wed with ye.""If you were a lord, you should be my lord,And the same if you were a thief," said she."And if you are a harper, you shall be my harper,For it makes no matter to me, to me,For it makes no matter to me.""But what if it prove that I am no harper?That I lied for your love most monstrously?""Why, then I'll teach you to play and sing,For I dearly love a good harp," said she.
That was how we spoke, my mother and I: in puns and games and rhymes. In, you might say, lyrics. This was our tragedy. We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny. We were tinpan alleycats, but the gift of music had been withheld. We could not sing along, though we always knew the words. Still, defiantly, we roared our tuneless roars, we fell off the high notes and were trampled by the low ones. And if bitter ices were the consequence, well, there were worse fates in the world than that.
Opportunities may come along for you to convert something -something that exists into something that didn't yet. That might be the beginning of it. Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want to see for yourself what lies behind the misty curtain. It's not like you see songs approaching and invite them in. It's not that easy. You want to write songs that are bigger than life. You want to say something about strange things that have happened to you, strange things you have seen. You have to know and understand something and then go past the vernacular.
Wish You Were Here So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, Blue skys from pain. Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? And did they get you to trade Your heros for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage? How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl, Year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.
