Friday, December 24, 2010

Effortless songwriting

ah ah ah ah ah

je suis là
devant toi
entre nous il y a
une table
avec de la bouffe dessus
je la regarde
avec mes dents
et j'ai envie de croquer dedans
ça a l'air succulent

ah ah ah ah ah

je suis là
devant toi
entre nous il y a
un piège
lequel d'entre nous va
se mettre les doigts dedans?
nous sommes pris
tous les deux
il n'y a plus rien à dire

encore

ah ah ah ah ah

The first half of this song came to me in the shower about two weeks ago. As soon as I got out, I ran to the tape recorder, still dripping wet, and recorded it, singing all the music parts as well, so as not to forget it. The recording of it is ritualistic more than it is an actual documentation. The act of recording the song means that I won't forget it. I haven't listened to the recording since, because I didn't need to - the song stayed in my head.

This morning, the second verse came to me. Again, completely unexpectedly. I was making coffee, and I just spontaneously started singing it. All the lyrics were there. So I wrote it down. And now it's done. All I have to do is record it properly.

I really like this song a lot and I have no idea where it came from. I didn't put any thought into the lyrics at all - they came almost automatically - but now that I look at them they mean something to me.

In the first verse, two people are sitting at a table, facing each other. There is food on the table, and it looks delicious, and they're looking at it, waiting to sink their teeth into it. Because of the music and the melody and the way the song is sung, there is definitely some kind of tension in the air, which could be interpreted as sexual, but not necessarily. But the focus is on the food, not the relationship between these two people.

The second verse starts the same way, but now instead of a table, what's between them is a trap. What kind of trap? I don't know. But they're both looking at it, wondering which of them is going to get their fingers stuck in it. But then it turns out that they're both trapped, they've been trapped all along, and they have nothing to say to each other. It's the situation itself that is a trap, not just whatever's on the table.

The simple "encore" at the end suggests that this situation is a recurring one.