"Now you're gone, there's nothing left to go on, to go on..."

In May 2017, I took a night bus to Ghent with the grand ambition of writing a song. I had written one just a few days before on my guitar. I had been keen to incorporate a term that we used at the hostel, so I called it Check Out. The lyrics cited the well-honed seduction techniques from our local Lothario: "Leave tonight with glow-sticks in your shoes, it's a sign you're just another conquest, just another conquest..." It only really meant something to those who were there.

The idea of songwriting tourism came about when I reflected upon one former colleague who locked herself up in an Amsterdam apartment to write an EP. I knew I couldn't do anything like that, I'm too much of a tourist to refrain from going to the castles and the op shops. I need to go to the record shops and hassle the record store owners about the local scene in the 1980s. I need to go to the clothing shops and Shazam every song. I talk to too many people. I make too many friends. No way could a song materialise from that...

I did try on that trip to Ghent though. Between the frantic tourism, I went from coffee shop to coffee shop, writing Pat Pattison-style boxes containing lyrical narratives in my flimsy cahier. Nothing materialised. It wasn't until I came upon Le Bal Infernal, a used book cafe, when something changed. I sat in the corridor, watching a silent film flicker on the creamy stone walls, probably creating a fire hazard. An inter-title flashed up and stung me: "My heart's broken. I must be alone with my thoughts." 

Making sense of your false concepts...

I ordered at the bar. I sat down with a mocha and Trust Accounts arrived.

I worked out the chords and keyed in a primitive melody on Caustic, a synthy app on my phone. I wrote lyrics down in pencil, fearing a mistake but it fell out intact. The people on the next table asked me, "What are you doing?!" I laughed. You would have thought I would feel embarrassed or annoyed but I felt totally elated. Randoms witnessed this outpouring of frantic MIDI coding and my god, I had never identified as a songwriter, but these strangers just saw me writing a song.

Certain lines of Trust Accounts felt like a Jessie Ware song to me: "Why must we act as if this is forever when love expires at the end of the night? Why must I care and hope and wish whenever you say that we can talk and share despite..." It wasn't about any one person, it was about a pattern that rolls on in perpetuity: men demanding trust in an intrusive way.

My version of Trust Accounts is not the definitive version. My friend, Marcella Wright of the synth duo Silent Income recorded a cover of it. She sends me videos of her singing it on stage in Melbourne: "Demand accounts, you can talk, you can trust me..." If it wasn't for her, Trust Accounts would have lived and died as an unheard scrappy demo, but she arranged it and transformed it, giving it this beauty and iridescence.

The lyrics still sting, but I love that. I love how it honoured, and still honours, my truth.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Consequential Lyrics Fan Podcast #76
Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy (David M. Green's VHS Revue)
Faunts - M4, Pt. 2 (Word Tweak's Substack)
Brand New - Seventy Times 7 (Jessa Stephens' My Girlfriend Dolly)
New Order - Subculture (IJ Wilson's Halloween Listening Party on FOTW Radio)
Echo and the Bunnymen - A Promise (Mark Silver's Twitter)
Sparks - Equator (Rebecca Sheedy's Mild Scribbling)
Paul Simon - The Obvious Child (Shot97's YouTube)
Belle and Sebastian - Desperation Made a Fool of Me (Teatles' Twitter)
Pink Floyd - Time (David M. Green's VHS Revue)
Bloc Party - Plans (Sharronswims' Instagram)

Download (154.2MB)

Explore C&CM Podcasts 1-75 here

More about Consequential Lyrics

"Tonight you'll see how love can stay here forever, when all you want is just the one last time..."

I remember how I felt when I first realised that the Hurricanes' Only One Night beared a lyrical similarity to Hot Chip's I Feel Bonnie (House Mix). I realised there was something in these songs that could be made into something, a podcast discussing parallel lyrical themes: two songs that were musically unrelated, but they used the ephemeral nature of music to enhance the meaning of the lyrics.

Both songs look at the concept pleading for "one more night", using it as an anthem for temporary lovers: "I only want one night together, in our arms, this is the only night, we're meeting arms to arms..." The lines would loop over and over again and the repetition of it echoed its madness, suggesting that despite its insistent lyrics, that one night would never be enough.

Daydreams for such projects ring out while on walks, but they're rarely meaty enough to materialise into anything real. They faintly echo the preoccupations of Consequential Lyrics, a project I did actually complete in August 2013. It involved playfully pasting up lyrics and gushing about personal meanings in episodes about Queen, The Beatles, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths, Erasure and Roxette. There was also a fan episode, made up of contributions from musicians, writers, broadcasters, and fans.

It had to constantly remind myself that there had to be some value or even charm in recording the way people find these poetic dimensions in pop lyrics. These stories would become a precursor to the life I would lead at the hostel, sharing songs and lyrical associations with guests, late into the night. I sometimes wonder whether these lyrics were meaningful because we didn't read enough poetry, or whether we were just incapable of admitting how we truly felt.

As the hostel life moves further away from me, I wonder about those daydreams for projects that ring out. It's much like child tugging on my leather jacket, pitching ideas in vain. I'm left asking whether it's really my responsibility to do all this, to reveal personal stories with nauseating levels of vulnerability. My confidence wavers. Did I faithfully remember those lines that stung? Did I just make it all up?

Consequential Lyrics artwork by Antonio Sanciolo

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Consequential Lyrics Podcast #74
Fleetwood Mac - Isn't it Midnight
England Dan & John Ford Coley - I'd Really Love to See You Tonight
Sam Cooke - Desire Me
Sohn - Artifice
Nils Bech - Glimpse of Hope
Alexandra Savior - Crying All the Time
Boy Jr - Are They Actually Attractive?
Emma Pollock - If Silence Means that Much to You
Jim Croce - A Long Time Ago

Download (81.5 MB)

Explore C&CM Podcasts 1-73 here

Submit your voice recording of your Consequential Lyrics - quote its lyrics and expand on its meaning - for a future fan episode of C&CM. Please include the song title, personal story and relevant lyrics in your voice recording: consequentiallyrics@gmail.com

Consequential Lyrics #8: Fan Episode

Engage your confetti cannons, we've come to the end of the series of Consequential Lyrics!

Before we go all crazy though, I present the final episode which is entirely made up of submissions from some very eloquent lovers of music.

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the great many contributors who took the time to record something for Consequential Lyrics. In random order, these people include:

Andy Hazel (writer/musician, Bressa Voe)

Boy Billy 

Craig Schuftan (writer/broadcaster, Entertain Us!),

David Quantick (writer/broadcaster, The Blagger's Guide)  

James Anderson (blogger/podcaster, Appetite for Distraction)

Jerry (blogger/podcaster, Red Red Wine on a Sunday)

Louise Sucre 

Marcella Wright (musician/blogger, The Life Degustation)

Missy Laur 

Neave Merrick (musician, Automatic Writing)

Simon Knight (audio engineer/musician, Lung U P C)

And of course, a big thank you goes to the artist who did a superb rending of the Consequential Lyric logo, White Tiger Grafiks! I'll do something special for you all one of these days, I owe you bigtime.

Indochine - Les Enfants du Rock, November 1985

Of course, thank you for reading, listening and engaging with Consequential Lyrics. It's been an especially rewarding project, combining all my favourite things: lyricism, sentimentality, meaning, gushiness. It's been fantastic.

What's been your favourite episode? And if you're yet to declare one, what's your consequential lyric and why? And how would you fancy a Series 2??

Consequential Lyrics #8: The Fan Episode
Pagan Wanderer Lu - 2.0///The Bridge of Sighs
Sonic Youth - Kool Thing
The Sugarcubes - Birthday
Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock
Leonard Cohen - Anthem
The Replacements - Bastards of Young
EMF - Unbelievable
David Bowie - All the Madmen
The Smiths - London
Moloko - Sing It Back
Jamie Lidell - Game of Fools
Mariah Carey - Anytime You Need a Friend

Download (105 MB)

Post Script: If you're at all wondering about the mysterious location of Consequential Lyrics #7, it's a bonus episode about Roxette and you'll find it here!

Consequential Lyrics #6: Erasure

"I ain't ever going home, cause I'm having a good time, I ain't ever going home cause my time has come..." I never understood why those lines from the Erasure song, Home meant so much to me, because I've always wanted to return home. The music of Erasure always felt so safe to me, even now I feel so assured by its warmth and familiarity. It was always sacred in that regard, because I always knew that its beauty could never be corrupted by the passage of time. For my closest friends and family, Erasure would be unique in that we all felt incapable of describing their consequence and yet, we appeared to be so assured that we all felt the same thing.

I always knew that Erasure would carry this great importance to me, after all I had spent most of my life listening to their 1988 album, The Innocents in an attempt to recall blissful childhood memories of the English village where I lived for a short time. The memories would crystallise as I would announce to everyone, "Hallowed Ground is the village green! Ship of Fools is my school!" When I finally returned as a twenty year old, I walked around its vaguely familiar streets and purposefully listened to The Innocents, meditating upon its unique connection to this precious era. Again, I felt stunted by the consequence of this music and I knew, however I framed it, I could never honour it adequately enough.

The entire Consequential Lyrics project has been about acknowledging and articulating the personal meaning of lyrics. It's so strange with Erasure, because their consequence seems to exist in this largely unexplored state. Yet we're still so keen to stress the importance of these songs, we grab each others arms' and shriek whenever a song like Drama! or Imagination comes on: "I can't believe I actually forgot how perfect these songs are..." Such a response like this would transcend timezones and there'd be a buzz of text message saying exactly the same thing. We could never do anything but agree, acknowledging that familiar jab of endorphins that is reliably released during the first few seconds of Always or In My Arms. 
 

For me, it's perfect music that's frequently associated with these truly perfect moments of assurance and connection. I frequently return to the recent memory of ambling down the Philosopher's Walk in Kyoto with my brother and my best friend, singing Yahoo! together with this boisterous, gleeful enthusiasm. Perhaps I was thrilled to be celebrating such personal music in such a public way (or else I was buzzing from committing such an extreme gaijin faux pas in such an iconic locale). Whatever the reason, I love idea that we just can't get over it. We can't move past that hysterical stage of preliminary gushing and analyse why Erasure resonates as it does.

I'm sure if we were pressed to do so, we could all sit down and analyse what makes music (or indeed, lyrics) consequential. We could tear apart the poetic devices in those lyrical fragments, the scenic allusions created by Vince's synthesizers, the feelings induced by tried-and-tested key signatures and chord progressions. We could even go so far as to elaborate upon those independently created personal meanings, those stories that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the music itself. But then it all makes me wonder that if it were so easy to explain musical meaning, it probably wouldn't mean so much. That and there's a kind of relief that comes with just feeling... and knowing that others feel it too.

Wrap yourself up in every facet of emotion...

Consequential Lyrics #6: Erasure

Home

Hallowed Ground

I Love Saturday

In My Arms

Spiralling

My Heart... So Blue (Orchestral Remix)

When I Needed You (Melancholic Mix)

All Through The Years

Download (58.7 MB)

Consequential Lyrics: Urgent Memo from the Desk of C&CM!

Yet to record your contribution to the last episode of Consequential Lyrics? You have exactly one week to commit your feelings to tape! For details on how to contribute, hit the FAQ page!

Consequential Lyrics #5: The Smiths

There was a time when I enthusiastically advertised my adoration for The Smiths song, Rubber Ring. I always sure to provide that auspicious caveat that I would never outgrow the Smiths. I rebuffed those introductory lyrics: A sad fact widely known, the most impassionate song to a lonely soul is so easily outgrown. I'm certain that there were many others like me who were determined to reassure themselves that The Smiths were not just a phase, a fascination stemming from teen loneliness. Now, I can't help but view Rubber Ring as Morrissey's provocative statement, trolling the reverence of the faithful Smiths fan. To me, it's almost akin to a highly cherished (yet extremely insecure) lover baiting you in a snarl: "You'll get over me, you'll forget me when I'm gone."

Yet, in returning to The Smiths in this episode of Consequential Lyrics, I can't help but feel like there is a kernel of truth in Morrissey's prediction. It's a struggle to define exactly what I mean by that, because it is not as if I don't still love them. Their music and lyrics continue to be very important, but somehow it seems to lack that closeness it once had. I think back to when the lyrics was distressingly relevant: when loneliness, yearning and affinity seemed to be a central concern, when disastrous nights out seemed to be more prevalent. I assumed that its resonance had diminished because I don't live like that anymore. I don't think like that anymore. It's strange and it all makes me wonder whether lyrics really need to have that contemporary relevance in order to be truly consequential.

It's been suggested to me that it's not really a matter of relevance, more an issue of personal acknowledgement. For some, it can be especially difficult to acknowledge painful memories, those feelings that are recalled when we listen to songs like I Know It's Over and Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. The intimacy of Morrissey's lyricism can be distressing at times and the fact that these songs often take place within the adolescent bedroom serves to intensify that intimacy. It's important to have that idea of Morrissey as the adolescent fan and loner, it's important because it clearly demonstrates that he's been where "you" are now. He adores Sparks and The New York Dolls as you adore The Smiths and he gets it, he genuinely understands what it is to identify and obsess.

More than anything, it's important to preserve that idea of Morrissey as the adolescent fan and loner because eventually, he found someone that cured him: he met Johnny Marr. For my friends and I, The Smiths represented this prospect of an intensely brilliant creative partnership. We would analyse Morrissey and Marr: their oddly non-confrontational collaborative methods involving Johnny pushing a cassette tape through Morrissey's postbox, Marr's evident annoyance when he said he wrote this beautiful, rambling guitar line and then Morrissey called it Some Girls are Bigger Than Others. It was hardly an ideal partnership but you could see the love, you could see the affection in all those photographs of them together, draped over one another. We looked to them because it was the kind of connection we had always yearned for. We had always yearned for something as precious and as rare as their love for one another.

The Smiths lack that contemporary relevance because I no longer have that desire to have a Marr to my Morrissey (or a Morrissey to my Marr). I suppose that stings a little, because it was something that I had always wanted, something that I felt like I had always needed in order to be successful. I now see that intensely brilliant creative partnership is a kind of luxury, a myth that suggests a Marr could just rock up on your doorstep and fill the cracks in your head and your heart. But maybe that shift in attitude means that The Smiths are more probably relevant than they ever were, in all my years of loving them. It hurts to listen to them because they remind me of the hope I had and the hope I lost.

For we cannot cling to those old dreams anymore...
Consequential Lyrics #5: The Smiths
Rubber Ring
Pretty Girls Make Graves
How Soon is Now?
Girl Afraid
There is a Light That Never Goes Out
Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
I Won't Share You

Download (59.8 MB)

Consequential Lyrics #4: Pet Shop Boys

As soon as I started thinking about the Pet Shop Boys and lyricism, my thoughts instinctively turned to the website 10 Years of Being Boring. It's a relatively old (and surprisingly vast) website that was first created in 2000 and last updated in 2003, but I have never encountered anything like it before or since. I admire its reverence and its ambition to faithfully describe the construction and consequence of this one song, a song the webmaster describes as the most beautiful song ever created.

Even before the site's advent, I knew there was always a certain sanctity that surrounded this song. I recognised it in the hand-written text which featured in the introduction of the promotional video:

It's wistful and poignant, reflecting upon friendship and loss, the passing of time and the dreams of those who are no longer with us. In an interview in 1993, Neil Tennant said that Being Boring was a personal song because it was about an old friend who had died of AIDS: "... and so it's about our lives when we were teenagers and how we moved to London, and I suppose me becoming successful and him becoming ill." According to the webmaster of 10 Years..., Being Boring was Tennant's first autobiographical song and that idea really intrigued me.

How do we properly establish that a song is autobiographical in nature? Does it need to have a certain quality, an alarming degree of personal intimacy? Surely there needs to be some specificity, a plausible link between the artist and the confession? It's always interesting when an artist freely discloses that personal consequence in an interview, as Neil did with the New Musical Express. What's fascinating, in this case, is how that act of disclosure ultimately contributed to the credibility of the Pet Shop Boys, transforming their unique brand of disco into art.

It's always so enjoyable to listen to Neil and Chris discuss their music, as demonstrated by how frequently we watch Pop Art: The Videos with their commentary. It's abundantly clear that it's all been carefully scrutinised in great detail: it's everything from the samples to the orchestration, the artwork and the imagery, not to mention, all those lyrical themes and intended meanings. It's so enormously gratifying to see how much thought went into the construction of this great music and yet, I can't quite understand why I appreciate it so much.

Perhaps a part of it has to do with the fact that so many artists just don't go into that level of detail. Whether it be obtuse lyrics or cagey artists, it's unrealistic to think the listener can always uncover a song's autobiographical relevance to the songwriter. It's a point that is so often demonstrated by friends who are musicians, who go on to confess the meaning of that song after the show is over. They add, "But I can never say that in an interview, I can never tell anyone what that song really means." I suppose that's why the autobiographical song seems so important: we want to feel as if we've been entrusted with a secret.

Consequential Lyrics #4: Pet Shop Boys
Home & Dry
Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
Can You Forgive Her?
Miracles
Always On My Mind
Numb
The Way It Used To Be
Tonight is Forever

Download (61 MB)

C&CM Needs Your Consequential Lyrics!

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk is in the middle of a project called Consequential Lyrics, a series which looks at the personal meanings derived from pop lyricism. C&CM needs your help in constructing the final episode which will consist entirely of contributions from readers, listeners and lyric-lovers JUST LIKE YOU!

It's really quite simple: we're looking for brief, good quality voice recordings in MP3 format (192 kbps, 44000 kHz), describing the personal significance of any pop lyric that resonates with you.

Once you're done with your recording, upload the song you're talking about and your voice recording to the Consequential Lyrics Entourage Box and then wait til October 7th to hear your contribution (and many others) in the final episode of Consequential Lyrics!

The due date for submissions is Tuesday 1st October so don't dally. For further questions and style guidelines, visit the information page for Consequential Lyrics!

Consequential Lyrics #3: Depeche Mode

There are a great many Depeche Mode songs that I love, but I have always been impressed with the lyrics of Shake the Disease. The chorus is ironic and beautiful and brilliant because it perfectly articulates how difficult it is to articulate: you know how hard it is for me to shake the disease that takes hold of my tongue in situations like these? I really love that about the words of Martin Gore. Not only does he express intensely private sentiments, he acknowledges how difficult it is to do so. He knows it's hard to make sense of the head and the heart. He's well-acquainted with the terror that comes with vulnerability.

It's only since I've been asking friends to contribute to the fan episode of Consequential Lyrics that I've realised how difficult it is for some people to express their feelings. Perhaps it's a ridiculous point to make, but it's one that has struck me in the process of carrying out this project. I thought it would be easy to reel something off, after all, we're so naturally inclined to identify with pop lyricism. As friends, we constantly have conversations where we discuss the meanings behind the lyrics that sting us. Yet there seems to be this curious emotional reaction to the task of committing such meanings to record and it's not a reaction I entirely understand, but then again, this is something I do for fun.

It was only tonight when I was talking to one friend about the prospect of keeping a diary. She said: "I don't write because I fear what might come out." It was a beautiful moment of insight and one that really made me think about the nature of lyricism and personal identification. I loved Depeche Mode songs like Somebody and Shake the Disease because they managed to express what was to me, the inexpressible. Perhaps you could say that I saved myself the effort and the emotional discomfort of having to express what I really felt. Then again, I would argue that I merely enhanced my understanding of the situation by relating to these lyrics.

"Words are very unnecessary": Violator Art Prints
I won't deny the fact that my fascination with Depeche Mode at the age of 15 had much to do with that startling thematic coincidence that many of these songs were about an older man crushing on a 15-year-old girl. These lyrics included aspirational details like night-time drives and antagonistic flirtation. It was important that they came to be associated with their own sexy breed of Dark Romance™. Yet what was interesting about the re-investigation of these songs was that I realised that Depeche Mode was not just about darkness or romance (or drugs or S&M, for that matter). I see now that Martin Gore wrote most passionately about that desire to express and to connect.

I find it amusing that it should come back to that idea of expression, but I suppose I should have known all along. My favourite Depeche Mode lyric is contained in the song, Here is the House: With or without words, I'll confide everything... It's only seven words but it's an intensely gratifying sentiment, suggesting that regardless of your capacity or your willingness to express "the truth", what you actually mean will be apparent. That is a comfort to both the shy and the gregarious, for while I'm not particularly scared of saying something, I'm scared of not saying something correctly. I want to honour my feelings as accurately as possible and perhaps that why I align myself with Martin Gore as I do. It's one thing to articulate it, it's another thing to articulate it correctly.

Consequential Lyrics #3: Depeche Mode
See You
Here is the House
Shake the Disease
Somebody
But Not Tonight
Never Let Me Down Again
Walking in my Shoes
Blasphemous Rumours

Download (66.4 MB)

Consequential Lyrics: Hand-written Lyrics of Consequence

Guests of last night's Consequential Lyrics Zine Launch at Melbourne's iconic zine emporium, Sticky Institute were invited to write down some lyrics that were of personal consequence to them and put them in the small black slotbox provided:

 

 Here are the lyrics they anonymously wrote down:

One thing in life so far I've wanted most of all,

It was to straighten out my bends and curves.

How to escape my shape?

Become vibration.
Frida Hyvönen - Straight Thin Line

While you try to find the lines

to speak your mind, and pry it

open, hoping for an encore...

And if it gets too late

for me to wait

For you to find you love me,

and tell me so

It's okay, don't need to say it

Fiona Apple

My days 

are numbered

1, 2, 3, 4

5, 6, 7

The Would-Be's - My Radio Sounds Different in the Dark

These little conversations

If I try my best

You know I never could say anything

In twenty words or less

(+14 more after the jump!)

Consequential Lyrics #2: The Beatles

It's important to be among friends who view Beatlemania as a completely appropriate and reasonable reaction to the Beatles. In truth, my friends and I often stress to one another that if had we been at the taping of the Ed Sullivan Show or in the stands of Shea Stadium, we would have screamed (and possibly fainted) more dramatically than any of those hysterical girls on film. It's nice to acknowledge that, occasionally. It's nice to agree that the same breed of insane love manages to live on perpetually inside of us.

It's a powerful thing, that we should know all the albums, all the songs, all the lyrics, all the meanings. We know their story back to front and yet, we are still coming up with new bits of information to share with one another. I love the sheer expanse of what there is to know, the fact that they are still making radio documentaries about when The Beatles visited some little city in Wales. I love that there is an upcoming Coursera subject covering The Beatles' music. I love how it all inspires such a feeling of familiarity within us. We now speak about John, Paul, George and Ringo as if they're old friends of ours.

In making the Beatles episode of Consequential Lyrics, I wondered whether it was ever really possible to divorce a song from its historical context. After all, we have books like Ian McDonald's Revolution in the Head which document the circumstances under which every Beatles song was conceived, written and recorded. Even without the books, stories behind these songs are relatively common knowledge. What I'm curious about is whether that common knowledge affects the way we invent private meanings. Can ever really make this music ours, when we know what the artist really meant?

It's a curious term to use, ours, especially since friends have a particularly personal and purposeful approach in dealing with their musical legacy, meaning we often assigning albums and songs to one another. Saying that, for me, it's extremely unusual to take ownership of a Beatles song in a strictly emotional sense. I've only ever done that in two instances: For No One and Crying, Waiting, Hoping (which isn't even a real Beatles song, it's a Buddy Holly cover). I listen to those songs and their personal consequence seems to trump their historical context. Perhaps the associations are too painful or the official meanings are too indistinct, I'm not sure. I just know they're the only Beatles songs to take on that uniquely personal dimension.

Otherwise, these songs form an integral part of that narrative that we're constantly familiarising ourselves with. Obviously, incidental personal associations come about, lyrics often remind us of important places and moments. I've been fortunate in that many of those associations have to do with these Beatlesque-friendships, discussions with these very people who shared that insane love for the Beatles. The consequence was drawn from our fantastic imagining of the Beatles' history, but it was also drawn from this enormous relief that someone gets it: we've finally found someone who shares that intense fascination.

After I made this episode, I kept thinking about the white wall of Abbey Road Studios, crowded with messages of love. It was enchanting to see those Lennon/McCartney lyrics I loved, quotes from I've Just Seen a Face, Blackbird, The End and countless others. Why quote song lyrics? And why quote these song lyrics in particular? Perhaps it's an inscription intended to honour, ultimately designed to provoke a tug of recognition in whoever sees it. Perhaps it's a declaration of affinity, a handwritten sign that says these are my lyrics of consequence. Whatever it is, I can't help but be moved by it. Like those girls screaming in the stands, it's just a comfort that the hysteria is still going on... and it will likely continue on forever.

Consequential Lyrics #2: The Beatles
Eleanor Rigby
Don't Let Me Down
I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
You've Really Got a Hold On Me
All I've Got To Do
Wait
Anna (Go To Him)
For No One
I'm Only Sleeping
Free as a Bird

Download (52.3 MB)

Consequential Lyrics: The Zine Launch Party!

We're celebrating the launch of the Consequential Lyrics zine and project with a party at Melbourne's famed zine emporium, Sticky Institute, which is tucked away in the Degraves Subway underneath Flinders Street. It's on Friday 6th September between 6pm-8pm and there'll be stellar performances from Marcella Wright and Gary Trovato of Faith and Gasoline! It'll be all kinds of perfect, I tellsya.

For those of you who are unable to make it to the launch, you can purchase a physical or a digital copy of the Consequential Lyrics zine from the C&CM Etsy Shop. A few copies will also be available to purchase at Sticky too! The 24 page A5 page is handwritten in coloured ink and features ten essays, examining the personal meanings derived from pop lyricism. There will love, some heartbreak, a dash of yearning, not to mention frustration, crowded dancefloors and all that good stuff we all tend to live for.

To accompany the zine, here is an MP3 gift pack featuring all the songs featured in the zine. Hear the songs, feel the pain!

C&CM Presents Songs from the Consequential Lyrics Zine
The Postal Service - Clark Gable
The Popguns - Waiting for the Winter
New Rhodes - A Different Time
Mood Six - What Have You Ever Done?
Elvis Costello - The Beat
France Gall - Faut-il que je t'aime
Depeche Mode - Here is the House
Bloc Party - Little Thoughts
The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect
Dyva - Leftover Love
Interpol - Slow Hands

Download (64.4 MB)

Again, I would love you guys to join the party, feel free to RSVP at the Facebook event page! I can't wait to see you there!

Consequential Lyrics #1: Queen

I have finally come to terms with the idea that I'll never know what Freddie Mercury meant.

I fell in love with Queen as an eight year old and Freddie Mercury still has the honour of being my most important musical influence. Given all the personal meaning I invested in his creative output, I thought that Freddie would think about it in much the same way. However, when it came to talking about his music and lyrics, Freddie was vague. And flippant. Annoyingly vague and flippant. He boasted about the disposability of his music, famously likening his songs to Bic Razors. It was an irksome message: "You listen to it, like it, discard it, then on to the next. Disposable pop."

In his earliest interviews, he spoke of the difficulty and irritation associated with lyric writing. In later interviews, he spoke of the routine nature of creativity, the analogy that struck me most was that making music was much like churning out sausages in a factory. He consistently avoided disclosing any personal meanings and associations, urging listeners to develop their own interpretations. At the same time, there was a tantalising suggestion that there was some autobiographical meaning there: "People are always asking me what my lyrics mean. Well I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyse his work: if you see it, darling, then it's there."

I've spent a lot of time with Freddie. I've read a lot of books and listened to a lot of interviews. I have talked to a lot of people about his attitude towards lyricism and musical creativity: from musical collaborators, biographers, documentarians to representatives from Queen Productions. Some fascinating revelations came from that research, one contributor even theorised that Freddie's reluctance to disclose the nature of his creative process was due to a superstition. Apparently, he feared that if he described his working process, he would lose that ability to create... and here I imagined that he just wanted to keep it all to himself, not make his feelings conversational fodder for untrustworthy music journalists.

I was in this never-ending search for this lost sound byte, where Freddie gives up the coy bravado and reveals something consequential. I'd find flecks of honesty here and there, a re-imagining of Freddie pulling up a piano to his bed, to play melodies if inspiration ever struck during the night. Of course there's that immortal anecdote of Crazy Little Thing Called Love being composed in a tub at the Munich Hilton. It was not because it particularly affected my relationship with his music, but I just never bought his dismissive "forget this, it means nothing" routine. Given the passion and complexity of his work and the immense effort it took to create it, I fail to see how he honestly believed his music was disposable.

But perhaps it was just me, perhaps it was just me! Perhaps I had just spent so much time with this music and I had theorised about it so much that I wanted to feel as if he invested something personal in his art. There was always that possibility that he only viewed music as a money-making venture, but I was forever hopeful that he had approached it as a sentimental artist. While everybody else I talked to could accept what he said at face value, it was harder for me to accept that maybe, he just didn't care as much as I did and maybe, just maybe, I didn't know him as well as I thought I did.

Ironically enough, there was once a time when I didn't really care what Freddie thought of his own lyrics. As a teenager, I wrote wildly preposterous online essays interpreting various Queen lyrics. I employed provocative techniques to get readers enraged and engaged. I wanted them to tell me I was wrong: "That was not what Freddie meant!". For me, it was not about being right, as such, it was about motivating listeners to articulate their personal understanding of these songs. The passion and the authority with which readers spoke about his lyricism really inspired me. Even though there was no citations for any of it, I was often moved by the insight and eloquence of these people who took the time to study his music so carefully.

All those essays, that research and production work invariably led to the invention of this series. Consequential Lyrics is a project which celebrates the meanings we independently create, as lovers and listeners of pop. We are naturally pre-disposed to create personal meanings, in such a way that provides comfort, wisdom and insight. For all the songs we do love, it's rare that we get that opportunity to faithfully articulate that significance in a properly ordered way. I suppose this project as an opportunity for you to express those private meanings, to record your voice, describing the significance of those songs in such a way that it legitimises the process of personal identification.

I may never find that sound byte, that phantom interview where Freddie reveals exactly what I want him to reveal. Frustration lies in the fact that nobody really asked the right questions, not the questions I would have wanted to ask, anyway. I comfort myself at the thought that he would have extremely unimpressed at my preposterous suggestions and my tenuous theories, connecting lyrical fragments to a varied succession of internal conflicts. Yet now it doesn't even really matter, I see now that his reluctance inspired to something far more personally meaningful. Whatever his feelings were about his music, life and words, I'm grateful to him for all the love and curiosity he inspired within me.

Consequential Lyrics #1: Queen
The Night Comes Down
The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke
The March of the Black Queen
In the Lap of the Gods (Revisited)
Spread Your Wings
The Show Must Go On

Download (53.3 MB)

Introducing: Consequential Lyrics

If you like your pop music with meaning, there's a very high likelihood that you've chanced upon a lyric that has touched a nerve.

The music blog and podcast series, Cassettes & Chocolate Milk is launching a project called Consequential Lyrics!

From Monday 26th August, Missy El (the girl behind all the tapes and the milk) will be curating weekly 40 minute podcasts looking at those the stories we extract from those very eloquent moments in pop.

Lyrics from Queen, The Beatles, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths, Erasure and Roxette will be ripped from their context and liberally interpreted. There will be much heartbreak, warmth and honesty, but it doesn't end there...

The final episode of Consequential Lyrics will be a podcast exclusively made up of YOUR stories! That's right, we want YOUR voice recordings, describing the meaning behind those pop lyrics that mean so much.

In addition to the audio series, there is an accompanying Consequential Lyrics Zine. There will be a launch party for the 24 page A5 zine at Melbourne's Sticky Institute on Friday 6th September. The party starts at 6pm and will include live performances from Marcella Wright and Faith and Gasoline. The Facebook event details are here!

HOW DO I GET INVOLVED?

1. Choose that song and Google that lyric (if necessary).

2. Write a short script, introducing the song to the audience and explaining why this song and that lyric resonates with you. Feel free to quote the lyric and cite specific associations: places, times, dates, people! We want to know your story!

3. Record yourself reading your script. There is no strict length requirement, but anywhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes is fine!

4. Edit your voice recording into an MP3 file. To edit, you can use the free and easy sound editor Audacity. Make sure you record in stereo, 192 kbps, 44,000 khz!

5. Upload your MP3 introduction AND the MP3 of the song you're talking about to the Consequential Lyrics Entourage Box.

6. Wait til October 7th to hear yourself (and many others!) describe the meaning of their consequential lyric.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

When is the cut-off for submission?

Tuesday 1st October 2013.

Can I contribute anonymously? 

Of course, there is no obligation to disclose who you are or who you are talking about. Saying that, we're looking for a compelling story so a bit of detail is always good!

Do I have talk about one of the bands you've talked about? 

No, you can talk about any lyric from any artist from any genre you like! If a song or an artist has already been covered in the original Consequential Lyrics series, don't feel deterred from talking about it in your contribution!

I've timed my script and it goes over two minutes. What should I do? 

There's always that option to tighten up your script a little but if you can't find a way to do that, don't simply cut off your story, mid-way through! We want to know why these lines mean so much to you.

I want to talk about this one song, but it has no lyrics. What should I do? 

Because Consequential Lyrics is a project that focuses on the meanings we extract from pop lyricism, we can't really accept submissions that do not have any lyrics in them. Sorry :(

I'm a bit daunted about talking about my feelings. Can you give some handy tips as to how to get started on my submission? 

Listening to the songs you love is a perfect place to start. If there is a line you love to sing, think about why you love that line, as opposed to any other line. What does it remind you of? Who does it remind you of? Where does it remind you of? Remember, Consequential Lyrics is a collaborative effort and everyone is in the same boat. We're all attempting to articulate those meanings which we're so naturally inclined to create, but which are so difficult to express. It's simply a story-telling exercise and we would love to hear your story.

I've written a script for my Consequential Lyrics submission. Can I send it to you to have a read through?

By all means, if you are in any way unsure of your submission, please email: elle(dot)gray(at)gmail(dot)com

WHO IS MISSY EL?

Missy El is Eleanor Gray, a Melbourne-based producer who creates podcasts, essays and online created content for the long-running music blog, Cassettes & Chocolate Milk. In the past she has produced and panelled many radio programs, television programs, interviews, documentaries, vox pops and commercials for stations SUB FM, SYN FM, SYN TV, Triple R and the SBS program, Alchemy. She loves conversation, blank/filled notebooks, mochas and London.

For further information or press enquiries, please email elle(dot)gray(at)gmail(dot)com