Writing Songs in English
I spent much of my childhood, from an early age, reading and writing poetry. I was very lucky to have grandparents that were keen poets and musicians and they always encouraged me to write my own. I was always fascinated with the English language and the various uses and structures within songs and poems and I admire the skill it requires to incorporate emotion, humour and irony into lyrics. I loved limericks and learning how to write them frequently, I believe, gave me the basis of understanding rhythm using syllables and rhyming pattern structure that I use regularly whilst writing lyrics today. Thanks to my families’ musical background, I was very lucky to grow up listening to extensive styles and genres of music and this has led me to develop such a diverse musical preference.
British music has had a huge impact on my musical culture and has heavily influenced the music we create today in our band Foxiloro. The Beatles; The rolling Stones; Bowie; The Who and Oasis just to name a few of our musical idols that have and continue to inspire us. Together, we co-write our lyrics, compose and layer our instruments within and around them to create our songs. I love the creative process and it is a much larger process now with the band; with more ideas and skills and instruments used to create the finished product.
Ultimately, a song is a form of expression and the music carries the words to the listener in the desired form to deliver a whole experience. This communication is imperative; however, the music can do this alone. We are able to tell, by the sound of different chords and melodies, if it conveys emotions of love, loss, anger or joy etc., and the words are merely there to add another deeper layer of information and translation, with the vocals acting as another instrument entirely.
Quite often lyrics can be fairly ambiguous and incorporate double meanings, metaphors; poetic language like similes and many phrasal verbs and expressions. Very often poetic or artistic licence is used to bend grammatical rules and utilise a variety of poetic structures and patterns to create rhythm and flow to the song. This often allows us to interpret songs and relate them to our own emotions and personal experiences, making music thereputic yet powerful. Together with the large number of phonemes in the English language, some believe it makes writing songs in English easier to create rhyme. For me, it means writing lyrics is limitless in combination and variety and it is a tool for boundless creativity.
follow Foxiloro on instagram here