With the exception, perhaps, of 40-year old virgins, deaf people,
cenobite monks and long distance lorry-drivers, everyone has their ‘our song’.
Whether you are sixty or sixteen there’s likely to be something, somewhere, written
by someone quite separate to yourself that you feel you could have written – something
that could well have been lifted from the grubby little events of your own life,
something that corresponds directly to you. In fact, your so vain, you probably
think this news feature is about you; and in someways, I suppose it is. International
songwriter, producer and all round in-popsario, Eliot Kennedy certainly
thinks it is, he’s writing a book on this very issue and he’d like you to have
your say about the meanings behind the songs. Eliot should know a few things
about songs. Eliot writes the songs that make the whole world sing. He writes
the songs of love and special things. He writes the songs that make the young
girls cry. And he’s written them with shocking success and consistency for an
enviable range of artists that includes Take That, the Spice Girls,
Blue, Boyzone, Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, S-Club
7. In fact, if you were to name five number one UK singles in the last 10
years, I can predict with some degree of certainty that Eliot Kennedy will have
been involved in the song in either a songwriting or a production capacity. Take
That’s ‘Everything Changes’ featuring that cheeky Robbie Williams, was co-written
by Kennedy, ‘Bring It All Back’ by S-Club 7, the Spice Girl’s ‘Say You’ll Be There’,
‘Four Minute Warning’ from that perfectly-formed Mark Owen character – again co-written
by Kennedy, ‘A Picture Of You’ by Boyzone, ‘Supersexual’ by Blue, ‘Baby When You’re
Gone’ by Bryan Adams and Melanie C, ‘Let’s Talk About Love’ from Celine Dion –
all either written and composed or sonically ‘imagined’ in the studio by Sheffield’s
own, Eliot Kennedy. Whilst most of us can produce a quote for Linda Perry and
Guy Chambers pretty much on demand, too few will credit Kennedy with being the
UK’s very own Bacharach and David, our Dozier and Holland, or our Chin and Chapman.
Fair enough, there’s only one of him, and as a branded, double-whammy, roll-off-the-tongue-like-greased-lightning
icon, it probably doesn’t pack as great a punch – but the impact Kennedy has had
on the pop-world in the latter part of the 20th Century has been enormous. And
his recent business venture, ‘The True North Production Company’ with Take That’s
Gary Barlow should see him grabbing the attention of the record buying market
for some years to come. But aside from his contribution to every major
musical x-factor this side of Simon Cowell, Eliot wants to thank us for thanking
him with a bumper thank-you book of songs and the meanings and experiences behind
them; not necessarily the meanings first imagined by the writers themselves, but
how the song may have unravelled in your own life; what the song eventually came
to mean to you. ‘Our Song’ focuses on the truth, the life and the myth
of the popular song; the song as ‘virus’ if you like, passed on from one person
to another, mutating in meaning, perhaps getting more virulent, but always providing
a soundtrack to events that shapes and gets shaped by the arrangement of notes
and rhymes in your head. True there’s likely to be more than your fair share of
predictable outcomes: Robbie William’s ‘Angels’ being played at your Grandma’s
funeral, ‘I Will Always Love You’ being rolled out at your sister’s wedding to
that bloke that dumped her two weeks into her first term, or, to relieve the disappoint
of your car failing its MOT, Radiohead’s ‘Let Down’ or ‘There’s a Problem With
Mi’ Points’ by Frank Sinatra. But there’s bound to be a few surprises too. My
wife’s great Uncle Earnest, for example, who had ‘I Just Called So Say I Loved
You, played at his funeral only to have everybody’s mobile ring during the fade
and as the curtain began to fall. And there’ll be more poignant stories too. Stories
from people who have a song that might have transformed them, brought them back
from the brink, sent them over the edge or just simply provided some comfort.
And what about the songs that provide a source of embarrassment and regret?
I certainly have my own fair share of those. ‘Everything Changes But You’. I can
still hear the chorus ringing out across the floor of the packed-out students
union as I prised myself away from my friends for a moment and started to chatting
to a group of girls. ‘I helped write that’, I lied. Did I? Yes. Then what was
I doing here? I was checking out a band that was due to be playing a PA that night.
Had I really met Jason Orange and Robbie? Of course. Then what was my name? Eliot
Kennedy, I replied. Yes my own ‘our song’ story featured me and me only
claiming to be a successful but little known production guru and having the whole
thing collapse around me within hours of taking them back to a shared-house in
a terraced street that was somewhat slightly less than the sum of the parts I’d
suggested. Did I lie outright? Yes. Was I thoroughly ashamed? Yes. Did the statement
have any basis at all in reality? Well no. Not really. Although I had met Eliot
a few times. He was still using the facilities of a local studio and had written
a couple of tracks in his time with a man I had found myself working with. He
said he liked what he heard, offered to remix them and that was the end of that.
Neither I nor Blank Tape Studio ever really featured in his life again. But
yes, it did transform my life. In fact I must be one of the only people in the
world who had an epiphany brought about by a group of people more commonly known
as Gary, Mark, Jason, Howard and Robbie. It wasn’t the stuff of gospels, by any
means. But it certainly left its mark. ‘Our Song’ though, is your chance
to set the record straight. Your chance to do the remix, your chance to add chapter
and verse. Don’t wait for the True North Production Company to again start setting
the needle. Plot a course, yourself.. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,
seize it while you can. Mail Eliot with your own 'Our Song' and 'Song Meanings'
by clicking the link below:
eliot@oursong.co.uk And
in the event you still have time to do that remix, Eliot: crudenquiries@crudmusic.com Relevant
sites:
http://www.oursong.co.uk
Song Meanings - Song Lyrics
Song
Meanings - Song Facts
Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine 2006©
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