Yesterday, I was at the balcony spending some quality time with my niece. She is a very intelligent and beautiful little girl and shy about the camera. Lol! She is quite inquisitive (even surprising for her tender age) as she asked me so many questions pertaining to the earth; questions like; uncle, why do we have night and day? Does the earth have an end date? Why is there water underneath the ground? I tried my best possible to answer all her questions because of my love for knowledge and because I don’t want anyone else to feed her with wrong information. Just then something remarkable happened. The cloud changed as it was about to rain and I wasted no time to take a photo of this beautiful cloud.
original photo taken by me
A melody immediately pops up in my head as I gaze intently into the sky and I felt like stretching my hands to get a hold of it. My niece was with me all this time and she noticed the way I smiled deeply while looking at this beauty to behold and she utter three words; “it is beautiful” that would later become the title of a song I decided to write based on this encounter. Prior to the time of this encounter, I had developed a keen interest in listening to songs either written and performed by a music band named “TOTO” or songs written by “TOTO” and performed by other singers. Two noteworthy songs created by this wonderful band includes; “human nature” performed by Michael Jackson and “Africa” performed by them. Their lyrics hinges on existentialism, i.e. lyrics that questions the essence of nature or the essence of life. Their lyrics also hinges on a deep personification of abstract things.
As at the time of writing this post, I am already done writing my “it is beautiful” song but yet to record it. I gladly dedicated it to my beautiful niece since she was part of the inspiration of the song. I felt humane while writing the song and I think I will experience some sort of emotional outburst during the recording session. You know that feeling!
In essence, songwriting abilities varies from one songwriter to the other. The enjoyment of a song by a listener also varies.
For instance, considering three listeners (listener A, B and C listening to the same song) listener A might enjoy the song due to its rich melody, listener B might be so pleased with the arrangements of the song, and listener C might enjoy the song’s rich lyrical content. if I may ask, which category do you fall under? For me, though I look out for all the elements, but a greater percentage of my listening pleasure goes to the lyrical content of the song. The lyrics shows maturity in songwriting and intellectual strength and leaves an indelible mark in the mind of the listeners. I felt empowered and proud of my race after listening to Toto's “Africa” song. The song took me away to a distant land of endless possibilities and it greatly influenced my lyrical style. An excerpt of the lyrics from the “Africa” song (verse 1 and chorus) is as follows;
Verse 1:
I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in twelve-thirty flight
Her moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say
Hurry, boy, it's waiting there for you
Chorus:
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
In the lyrics above, you will realize that Africa was personalized as a lady. This shows that the songwriters crave a deep love for Africa same way they would for a human being. This in itself is brilliance and a nice artistic expression complemented by a sweet melody and arrangements. Thus it creates in the mind of the listener, an appreciation of the music craft.
Cheers to all the songwriters out there (including those on the steemit platform who are yet to be heard by the world) who waste no time in blessing us with great lyrical content that has in one way or the other influenced all of us positively. Music stays alive and will live long long enough because of them.
THANKS FOR READING.