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TneLovelssue
Emma Pollock
Is there a particular art to writing about love and relationships that differs from writing about other subjects?
ME: It is either easier or harder are people and therefore buy it is easier to make a l‘antasy than write something about yoursell'. Personally. I like loy'e songs that make you think that the writer actually experiences things like a human being.
KC: ll. you‘re too cliched about loy'e. people will gag. but too much attention to detail and you're in trouble.
KP: I'm very guarded about my own experiences. All told that makes me a lairly rubbish chronicler ol' lust and romance. Other people can do sex. spleen writing or sold searching much better than me so I leay e them to ill
songwriters
What qualities would you say make a love song great?
ME: Pain. And also pain.
KC: A balance of experience and naiy'ety. conflicting emotions. and a tune to tall in love/break up to.
AM: The best loy'e songs usually concern the loss of love. I think they need a hint of sadness and doubt: a strong sense of yearning. Without that edge. they can be appallineg bland and boring. but not always. You do have to keep an audience in mind it you eyer want anyone to listen to them — without a common truth. it‘s just narcissistic wank and no one will want to know.
MM: Cliches. humour. honesty. drama. wallowing. desperation. begging. bray ery. ()h. and a good melody combined with a background atmosphere that cleyerly makes the hairs on your neck stand up.
PP: You‘re trying to portray a feeling. .-\nd the words. melody. harmony and rhythm hay e to be ey'ocatiye ol' the thing you're trying to portray.
DO: It needs to be real. .-\s .lohn Lennon once said. low is real. Real is love.
EP: Don't use the word loye. Doth use any of the clichés. Try to express what it is that makes your experience of loye unique to you. It can speak to so many more people w hen a writer describes a situation they ’y'e been in and how idiotically' they'y'e reacted as a result of how they feel.
KP: Most of the greats haye a poignant. aching quality to them. They‘re about the uniyersality of parting or loss. The enduring songs are either for wrapping yourself in like a cosy
18 THE LIST 37 Jan-‘4 :c-t‘
blanket or baw ling your eyes out.
CA: I'm a big ('liel Baker Ian and almost anything he sung was a lo\ e song. He could hay e sung the telephone directory and it would ll;t\ e sounded like it ltl\ e sting. l’eople loye PUP music because the songs are w rapped up in the eyents that make up a memory.
Is writing love songs as brave an endeavour as it seems, laying your feelings out there in the open?
KW: Isn't that what all songs should be'.’
EP: .\ released song is a bit like a tattoo in that respect. you better hope it all works out . . . ME: I don‘t think that is important. (ireat loy e songs can be absolutely phoney and still touch you. Writing a great loy e song is participating in the great mistake ol' the human mind.
AM: You can only ey er be as bray e as you allow yoursell' to be. and anyone who claims to be a slaye to their writing is a charlatan. :\s a w rilcr. you create your own limits and work within them. l‘ll't'lllt'll are bray e. songwriters aren't. KP: Too ol'ten what might pass l'or bray ery is
just sell—pity or selli—indulgence.
MM: This kind ol~ song is good lot the writer. but also good for the people who can't always e\press their own feelings as eloquently. It's great to listen to a song and be able to relate to it and say. 'yeah. I led like that (inf. Singer— songwriters are the loot soldiers lighting in the trenches and on the trout lines ol‘ the War ol' l.o\ e. People can listen li'om the coml‘ort ol' their own homes sale in the know ledge that the battlch going well and that ex en thouin there are many casualties our boy s are w inning!
HEAR THESE GUYS IN ACTION: American Music Club play Oran Mor, Glasgow, Fri 8 Feb; King Creosote’s album Bombshell is out now; Aidan Moffat’s new album I Can Heart Your Heart is reviewed on page 67; Malcolm Middleton’s new album Sleight of Heart is out Mon 3 Mar; Dean Owen’s Whisky Hearts is reissued in Feb by Vermillion Records; Kathryn Williams’ collaboration with Neil MacColl is out Mon 3 Mar; Emma Pollock’s solo debut Watch the Firework is out now; Karine Polwart’s new album This Earthy Spell is out Mon 10 Mar; Palladium play Oran Mor, Tue 5 Feb; the premiere of Craig Armstrong’s opera Jesualdo is part of Scottish Opera’s Five:15 series at Oran Mor, Glasgow, from Fri 29 Feb.
Whatever stage your relationship is at. there‘s a great film out there for you. Paul Dale provides a lovers‘ guide to the movies
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'.i"ctt--t Shiite; ‘3' the it»: o‘ .i l‘ int; saoer‘. is a great We tum... i.-.risl‘:r1dtotaketbeir relat.<_i'is"ir_i to .2 were ef'woal lone! It thus sift lull olocgioo enough. in. [hid Lynch's niliiiist c two at Heart or pL‘Tt'! Greemcray's; The Coos, The low, His ‘.'.Cto .ir‘tr Her Lover Settllng down Fi’irt‘iilidti’r. 1:; lltitior’..t'it out xariot‘. :; t'w :Ltiii‘ii t" lite Se. leapt: tbout} lgtlilt‘, ror'iaritit‘ ritastt:r\'.or‘v«:; Ari Off/i or and (t Gortt/erriari and Prett'. Norm/i on the s’iolf, and bead east with Dairid leans seminal otiit {Jr [hit/ago Hot and steamy Start oft ‘.‘./lTll l raricois Truffaut‘s classic. li‘ltt‘,llll mtg-nary: a troif; corner ly' Ju/es et Jim l)(,‘l()l(} stopping; tliintit. up a gear With Roman Polanski's outrageous tale of mad, perverted love. Brtter Moon. l iriisli the (“JOllllltl With some 'rnano o mano' action li'l Allorwsr. CuarOri’s inamollous sex comedy Y tir rirziriirr tar 7 which, Platonlc relationship Watch the greatest tilrii about friendship over. i 7' Hit: i.,rctratoi'ror;trial. True romance Casablanca. Brief Encounter Ill/ow kills and l we Story still tut; at the lloartstr'rigs. tiut wil; not try Claude Leloucli'ti liall black-arid ‘HllllOlltllf _ ‘ colour. near wordless 1966 romantic classic A Man arid/l Woman instead’.2 Youll be humming Francis Lai's catchy tunes tOr days afterwards. Oolden anniversary Age is no barrier to taste and. while Orr Golden Pond is an obvious choice for older lovers. Hal Ashby/'5 tremendous 1973 black comedy Harold and Maude — about a morbid young man‘s relationship Wllh 80-year-old firebrand Ruth Gordon - is a Superior choice. Alternatively. seek out Wong Kar-wai's gargeous portraits of love and the effects of time. In the Mood For Love and 2046.
Dancing. Grease and
. ‘ Footloose are familiar romantic musical ClaSSlCS. but Jacques Demy's colourful mUSical The UmbreI/as of Cherhowg and Francis Ford Coppola's cocktail 3821 postmodern romanCier One From the Heart are truly mnd-blowrng. (Paul Dale)