WRITING LYRICS....

Last weekend I saw the production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Wow....yes, I'll start with wow and move on from there. I've always been a big fan of musicals (perhaps growing up and listening to my parents recordings of Camelot and Oliver)- and JCS is one of my favourites (up there with Cabaret, Rocky Horror Picture Show and Sweet Charity). I think there is something about the under dog.

It is astounding to think that JCS was first shown on Broadway in 1971. Over forty years ago, yet the music and the lyrics are still resonating with so many of us.


I have never written lyrics or music or any combination of the two.

No, that's not strictly true. I do 'adapt' rhymes and children's songs for Storytimes. Simple work to turn Incy Wincy Spider into Rolly Polly Snowman---but that is as far as I go...or dare to venture.

The world of music is foreign to me. Yet it is surely another form of writing. I honestly have no idea how it is created. Whether you start with the lyrics, then write the music, or whether it begins with the music and the lyrics follow. Perhaps it is a case of both?

Whatever it is, I'm in awe of those that can put pen to paper and create a song.

So many songs endure....they become a part of ourselves, good times and bad. We associate parts of our lives to different songs. Some of us have 'our song', the song that represents us as a couple (afraid I don't have that...don't know if that says more about us or the music at the time we met).

Music is a huge part of our lives. We have favourite artists (Bowie), we have favourite songs that we turn up loud when they come on the radio (What's Up)...we have songs we associate with the highs and lows of our life.

I know several poets who write music...perhaps there is a close relationship between the two forms?


Whatever the case, music is a part of us. Whether its a beat that catches us, holds us tight or perhaps lyrics that we claim as ours.  We listen to it when sad, when we are happy, it is part of all our celebrations, weddings and funerals, birthdays and The Little Drummer Boy and Frosty the Snowman are dragged out at Christmas time.

Back to JCS--- it was a great night out and Tim Minchin as Judas was superb.
Did Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice know how long lived their musical based on Christ's last week would be? Perhaps not, but that goes to show how powerful music is. It really is a force to be reckoned with.

And on that note, I will leave you with this. Another of my favourite artists, Alice Cooper, doing his version of King Herod's Song....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6NSVrXQfvc


Enjoy :)



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