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Shine - Reaching people with music

I hate to admit it, but at the moment I am listening to Take That's Abbey Road performances from the year 2009 quite often. I enjoy their "recent" works, and I was one of the people who just didn't like boy bands in general very much in the past. I was a teenager who preferred to listen to other things. I liked one or the other song of different boy bands, but that was about it.

When the music of a band or a singer "speaks" to me, I usually also want to find out a bit more about the background. I did a little bit of research about the more mature version of Take That, and I like some of the things I have read and listened to. But this is not about Take That - don't worry. I really don't know enough about them to write about them. I only know what their music does to me. The song that got my attention was "The Flood", then I also discovered other songs I really liked. "Shine" is one of the songs. I actually liked the lyrics more than the whole piece, but yesterday I came across a very different version - yes, you guessed it, one of the Abbey Road performances. Here it is:



I am thinking a lot about the creative process in general at the moment - as some of you might have noticed. And when I listen to the lyrics of songs (if I don't like a song's lyrics, then even a good melody can't turn it into something I like), I sometimes wonder what has gone through the head or soul of the person who wrote the lyrics, and what kind of person he or she is/was. And do the words come before the music, or the music before the words?

And are the songs ever directed at certain people (I'm not talking about love songs here)? "Shine" apparently was partially addressed towards Robbie Williams, who was not part of the band at that time. I probably just like the lyrics a lot, because they partially are what I myself would need to hear (but of course not just from anybody, it would have to come from someone I actually trust to tell the truth). Maybe that is the main reason why those Take That songs speak to me at the moment - because they are a source of indirect encouragement.

In a way, knowing that there are some people out there who do write such things, encourages AND depresses me at the same time.

Comments

  1. Music is such a powerful source of emotional feeling. I love it when songs provide encouragement, whether indirect or directly. I love that you think about the songwriter when listening to the lyrics. I do the same thing! Great post.

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  2. Thank you for your comment. It's good to know that someone else does the same thing! Often people have quite a superficial approach to music (not that this is in any kind wrong, but it doesn't exactly lead to great conversations).

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