Be Big (LITLR) - AndyR Original

[AndyR]

Another Songwriting Demo for FAWM 2022

Song number 15.

I wasn't able to stop! I really meant to, but... Oh well.

It's still February, so it can go with the others.

IT IS MY FIRM INTENTION TO STOP NOW.

But on the other hand, I always have tended to write every time I pick up a guitar...
And the FAWM sausage-factory mentality has got me into "finishing"...
It's also got me into recording myself a demo...

So here's today's...

Be Big

Words & Music AndyR
--------------------------------
While you were watching from the sidelines
I made this special thing for you
I wasn't sure if I should send it
To you

We did not know if you were happy
Or if you needed someone's help
While you were gone I fell in love
With someone else

We waited so long
To see you
To hear something new
Now that you're here
We're hoping
That what you'll do
Is

Be big
Not small
Be big
For us all
We know
What it costs you
To be big

While you were hiding from the headlines
While you were trying to live a life
We were wondering what happened
To you

Did all your hair fall out
Did you lose your voice
Now that you're back
We're hoping
That what you'll do
Is

Be big
Not small
Be big
For us all
We know
What it costs you
To be big

Copyright (C) 2022 A A J Russe. All Rights Reserved.

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[StephenM]

I like reading the lyrics to your songs first and then listening... I kind of started doing this more now with most songs.  I think it's because for me generally lyrics and music are two different things and the music keeps me from really listening to the lyrics.  I know many people are just the opposite.  It is what it is. 
I think you have a romantic side to your music and that your heart appears to me to be open to loving people who choose to get close to you.  But this is just the writer and it may not be you at all.  So I won't pin anything to you.  Instead the writer conveys in numerous writings the longings of the heart, the hope of things in the relationship, the disappointments he feels at times (even often times) and the ability to welcome back the ones who drifted away.  Conveys loyalty.  I would imagine the person conveyed (and not just from this song but the general sense I get from reading many of your works) has a circle of "loves" that he cherishes in various forms and fashions where the one who is the absolute closest is loved deeply, as deep as one can be loved but the one furthest away from the center of his heart is still cherished and special. 
Once again I do not assign anything to the actual person writing this as I do not really know them but what the author conveys to me about the one he writes about. 
It has taken me a while to understand a songwriter or author could be totally making stuff up that is not in the slightest close to reality.... or is it?  ha... and that is what a great writer does... makes you think about it!

[TPB]

First thing this song reminds me of is a great song for closing time at the bar not sure why just the mental picture I got
Very nice brother
Tim

[godinqc]

Great song , great vocals and lyrics. It's quite amazing that you can create so many good songs in such a short period of time.
It takes me weeks to create a song ..
Kudos .. Great work.

[AndyR]

@StephenM

Er, yes, maybe... but...



Here's the actual story for this one:

"You" is Florence Welch of Florence and The Machine
"someone else" is Taylor Swift
"we" is Mr and Mrs Russe

Most of you can stop reading there! I nearly deleted the rest...

Background
We are BIG fans of FATM, but her last album felt a little "small".
When covid hit, she disappeared off the face of the earth.
Hell, even Adele managed to do something.

Meanwhile, through articles about her trying to regain control of her recordings, I discovered that Taylor Swift, far from being the dumb bimbo I imagined she was, was actually pretty good.
Actually, she's pretty bluddy WOW.
Possibly one of the best songwriters I have ever, EVER heard.
And, rather than getting depressed because her Lover World Tour got kicked in the covids (well, apparently she moped around for a week or so), instead, she released two (fantastic) grown-up double albums within months of each other, reinventing herself completely (except it's still the same songwriter, just she's found out how to write from a different angle), and she's also rerecorded at least two of the old ones in vastly expanded form (possibly all of them by now).

Actually, Taylor is in another of my FAWM 2022 songs.... just remembered that.

BUT, much as we love Taylor, we (Mr and Mrs R) are very English, and Florence is our utter genius songwriter english rose...
Where have you got to Flo?
Why are you so quiet?
Are you ok?
Please be big again.
Please give us some more amazing times...

That's all there is in this song (for me).
But I tried to write it so that you'd not be able to see the brush-strokes.
Also so that it is likely to be interpreted as some sort of love song thing, longing, whatever
... and that's because those are the types of song that I want to hear enough to spend my money on

How it got written
Yesterday afternoon I was not song-writing.
I was watching Midsomer Murders and having a nice noodle on a P90 Gibson through a real valve amp I hadn't switched on since FAWM started.
I got the musical ideas for this. A bit of chord play, some singing over it. I had the entire verse, build, chorus just noodling. I do that all the time, every time I pick up a guitar. I don't practice licks so much, I NEVER try to learn other people's stuff, I practice playing guitar and singing something. No words, sometimes words, whatever... I'm not planning on keeping any of it usually.

FAWM has done two things for me:

First, it has unlocked (and put me into) "finishing" mode.
For me this is as simple as "don't get me out of bed until you've got a title" - I think Sammy Cahn said that, might be wrong.
You might get some lyrics or something up front, but don't put ANY effort in unless you've got the title.
I adopted this "what's the title then?" approach after I gave song 7 the wrong title.
All the others have been driven by the title, and I'm finding it's a 100% finishing success method (at the moment!)

Second it's got me into "record the ideas" mode.
I "write" all the time, I have ideas ALL the time.
I don't bother capturing or remembering them because I already have too many songs and if the idea is any good it'll stick around somehow.
During FAWM, I needed most, if not all of them, to "count" and turn into songs.
I've always known this, but I've proved to myself that EVERY idea I have could be a song.
I've also learnt that writing this many, so fast, I cannot remember ANYTHING about the tunes or melodic phrasing if I don't capture it now.
I'll forget how to sing the verse while trying to sing the chorus.

So, with that in mind, I'm geared up for acoustic demos: "I'll record the idea for finishing later when I've got a title".
So I switched off the amp, plugged in the mic, fired up the 48v, grabbed the Godin and sang one verse, one chorus, of la-la-gobble-de-gook and put the guitar down again.
"While you were watching from the sidelines" came out during that.
Meant very little, I had no title to give it any context...

Back to Midsomer Murders...

And then...
The email from Florence arrived.
I knew something was happening because of a teaser email the day before.
But this one was notification that "King" had just been released.
The emotions were "oh please be BIG Florence", I mean the sound, but also I want Florence to FABULOUS again, I really really want her to succeed and get over the transition from "fey girly p!sshead who can sing and prance a bit and paint HUGE sonic pictures" into "grown up woman singer not trying to be a girly anymore" (we guys have to do something similar, but I think it's harder for the women with the image thing).
I didn't dare listen to "King" before I'd finished my own little song idea, because I now had a title.
I just sang to the picture of Florence that was in the email.

I wrote the lyrics in 10 minutes, by singing them.
Learnt it enough to sing it all the way through
Recorded it (this was complete take number 3, the others were all deleted)
Mrs R got home, loved it, but couldn't figure out what it was about.

So I finally put "King" on.
And we were blown AWAY.
Flo is gonna be big again


All my songs are written like that or some variation of it.
There is some sort of seed in reality, mine or someone else's.
It's not always one thing, often it's bits grabbed and stitched together to make something else.
I figure out how it moves me, that's the main bit of ME that's in it, not really much more.

Sometimes, I might be writing "for" somebody or something - but it's still only a song to be completed, it's not a special offering or message.
Over the last few weeks, I've written two "for" my wife - but they're not specially or explicitly that.
I've written one "for" my Mum who died in January, but I'd be hard pressed to explain which one and how it relates.
And I wrote one "for" the guitar that recorded 2-13, wrote 3-13, but got utterly destroyed during the recording of 13.

They all sound like they could be love songs, or love-lost songs, or, or... something darker.
But they're all about feelings and behaviour.
That's because those are the types of songs I like.
I don't like protest or political songs, or current affairs songs, for example. As a consumer they tend to turn me off, always have done - so I'm unlikely to write one.
I like songs about loss and yearning and, as I get older, comfort and longing.

I am expecting the listener to complete songs in his or her own head.
So over the years I've learnt to try to leave it open to interpretation.
I used to leave it so open that a song was full of 4 or 5 concepts and the listener would get lost or confused.
As I've got older, I've got a lot more focused. Keep those concepts down, if you've got 3 or 4, you've probably got at least 2 or 3 songs!
Try to save the listener from getting confused, but give him or her the space to weave his or her own story,

I tend not to want to explain my songs anymore - I'm actually very willing, especially with other songwriters. But one of the issues is that no-one ever agrees with what the song-writer thought they were doing - I learnt that years ago! Initially I always thought it meant I'd failed, if they didn't hear the same as I sang. I had band members explaining to me what my songs were really about - that's a REAL downer, utterly soul-destroying. All songs mean all things to all people. No-one knows what the song-writer really hears, no song-writer really knows what the listeners hear.

Another reason not to explain songs in the detail like I did higher up... I kind of don't want to reveal how the trick works - not because it's a secret, it's not it's really mundane and down-to-earth, but because revealing it lessens the magic and wonder, and that's what I was always trying to sell in the first place, even when I was 14. I got magic from people singing to me, I wanted to do that to other people.

Anyway, we're all songwriters together - it seemed worth explaining in this case
(Whether it was worth reading is another matter! )

[StephenM]

dang a
Andy....
you are a writer...!!!!

I agree on Taylor...she is an impressive songwriter.. impressive artist... massive
thanks for all the other info...and just goes to show you that the listener hears what the artist doesn't convey sometimes... it's ok though... it's interesting and good and talked about and written about!

[StephenM]

well, I watched King, but I watched it before you mentioned it specifically after you had mentioned her and the band... cool, weird, great.  Got a little nervous thinking about her twisting my head off...
But I found another one that I liked even better from 2010...the one "You Got The Love"....
wow...that one is amazing and the video of course was difficult to not like her....you know.  I don't think she needed that though...the music was enough. 
Thanks for mentioning that and all the detail of your thinking and process.  I am not as apt to watch Taylor these days... nothing against her really just lost interest in the newer stuff...
Adele though I heard of but never heard....everybody talking about her (which would be a reason I wouldn't generally listen)...however 6 years ago I was flying back from Dubai with two of our kids and had some time so I found it on the planes system and turned on 25.... yeah...big stuff... still listen now and again.

[kenny mac]

Excellent track.
I love the vibrato in your voice.
Theres almost a David Bowie quality to it.
The guitar sounds great too.
 Bravo sir.

[SE]

Loving the guitar and vocal, sounds so clear and well recorded.
Maybe a bit of departure form your other  stuff, this has a pop tune vibe which I like, just excellent  writing, cool stuff!!