N8's Artistic Endeavors: "You Were Meant for the Stage"
Lyrics:
You Were Meant for the Stage
(N. Forster)
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
I followed your play for seven years
It brought laughs and cries, applause and tears
And everybody laughed
And I stood up and cheered
But you could never hear… because
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
About:
This is a track on Erros and it's currently slotted at track 6, placing it right between "Scarecrow" and "Couldn't Be," and thus evening out the album's pacing by slowing the beat down a bit between two more upbeat numbers. I wrote this song while living in Troy sometime, and it was designed to be a companion piece to "Actress" and "Bleachers." It's placement on the album works nicely from a thematic standpoint because it fits right between the two ("Actress" is track 1 and "Bleachers" is currently slotted at track 10).
As I was working on "Actress," "You Were Meant for the Stage" existed as a little ditty in the same vein, mostly working around the words for the chorus, which I think I had in mind before I had even written any music for the piece. I originally thought that "You Were Meant for the Stage" was a B-side (a B-side for what, I don't know) but there were a number of reasons why I now have it slotted to be on the album.
Firstly, I really have grown to despise the song I knocked off, "When I Try to Kiss You (You Turn Away)." I began and almost finished a recording for it, and every time I listen to it I consistently hate it. I'm not sure if it's because I expressed it poorly or that it was a poor song to begin with, but it's probably a little of both. I think I was more in love with the idea behind the song (a dance song about romantic rejection with a call and answer chorus) than the song itself, which changes keys without a good transition and is just not catchy enough for a song with nothing but a D, a C, and a G in its chorus. Plus, I tried to be a little too thematic with the song and the lyrics do not stand up by themselves at all.
Secondly, YWMFTS began to grow on me. Even though I wrote the song on piano, I switched it over to guitar and it began sounding much better, especially when I simplified the chorus to contain two chords instead of one. Plus, if you're going to put an inferior song on an album, it might as well be short, and YWMFTS clocks in at under 3:00 and might even become shorter.
There are a lot of little things I like about this song, but the core of it is really the two lines that make up the chorus. I always picture a large man in a tuxedo, complete with handle-bar moustache delivering the line "you were meant for the stage" with a wave of a meaty hand to some starlet on her ascent to acting grandeur or what not. I chose to make the line the title of the song not just because it's the first line in the chorus (the textbook sell-out songwriter's rule for song titles) but because the line functions best when isolated somewhat from the other lines, in so far as it's best for that line to hit the listener before the following line: "you were never meant for me."
I mean for the line: "you were meant for me" to be cutting; not so much cutting in the sense of a quip but cutting in that it causes friction with the prior line and transforms the prior from a gratuitous compliment to a rationale for the narrator's own sorrows. I think the music sets up the zeugma well becuase the listener knows when she hears the cadence fall on a minor chord that the ensuing lyric will most likely not be about flowers and sunshine.
I've always liked short songs that sort of swoop down and give the album a taste of what it needs. I think "Sweet Sweet" by the Smashing Pumpkins provides a great example. It enters the album after a huge motherfucker of a rock song, and is just this jangly, simple catchy tune that lightens the mood a bit before Siamese Dream closes with "Luna."
You Were Meant for the Stage
(N. Forster)
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
I followed your play for seven years
It brought laughs and cries, applause and tears
And everybody laughed
And I stood up and cheered
But you could never hear… because
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
You were meant for the stage
You were never meant for me
About:
This is a track on Erros and it's currently slotted at track 6, placing it right between "Scarecrow" and "Couldn't Be," and thus evening out the album's pacing by slowing the beat down a bit between two more upbeat numbers. I wrote this song while living in Troy sometime, and it was designed to be a companion piece to "Actress" and "Bleachers." It's placement on the album works nicely from a thematic standpoint because it fits right between the two ("Actress" is track 1 and "Bleachers" is currently slotted at track 10).
As I was working on "Actress," "You Were Meant for the Stage" existed as a little ditty in the same vein, mostly working around the words for the chorus, which I think I had in mind before I had even written any music for the piece. I originally thought that "You Were Meant for the Stage" was a B-side (a B-side for what, I don't know) but there were a number of reasons why I now have it slotted to be on the album.
Firstly, I really have grown to despise the song I knocked off, "When I Try to Kiss You (You Turn Away)." I began and almost finished a recording for it, and every time I listen to it I consistently hate it. I'm not sure if it's because I expressed it poorly or that it was a poor song to begin with, but it's probably a little of both. I think I was more in love with the idea behind the song (a dance song about romantic rejection with a call and answer chorus) than the song itself, which changes keys without a good transition and is just not catchy enough for a song with nothing but a D, a C, and a G in its chorus. Plus, I tried to be a little too thematic with the song and the lyrics do not stand up by themselves at all.
Secondly, YWMFTS began to grow on me. Even though I wrote the song on piano, I switched it over to guitar and it began sounding much better, especially when I simplified the chorus to contain two chords instead of one. Plus, if you're going to put an inferior song on an album, it might as well be short, and YWMFTS clocks in at under 3:00 and might even become shorter.
There are a lot of little things I like about this song, but the core of it is really the two lines that make up the chorus. I always picture a large man in a tuxedo, complete with handle-bar moustache delivering the line "you were meant for the stage" with a wave of a meaty hand to some starlet on her ascent to acting grandeur or what not. I chose to make the line the title of the song not just because it's the first line in the chorus (the textbook sell-out songwriter's rule for song titles) but because the line functions best when isolated somewhat from the other lines, in so far as it's best for that line to hit the listener before the following line: "you were never meant for me."
I mean for the line: "you were meant for me" to be cutting; not so much cutting in the sense of a quip but cutting in that it causes friction with the prior line and transforms the prior from a gratuitous compliment to a rationale for the narrator's own sorrows. I think the music sets up the zeugma well becuase the listener knows when she hears the cadence fall on a minor chord that the ensuing lyric will most likely not be about flowers and sunshine.
I've always liked short songs that sort of swoop down and give the album a taste of what it needs. I think "Sweet Sweet" by the Smashing Pumpkins provides a great example. It enters the album after a huge motherfucker of a rock song, and is just this jangly, simple catchy tune that lightens the mood a bit before Siamese Dream closes with "Luna."