Chords for Elizabeth Fraser talks about her lyrics

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Elizabeth Fraser talks about her lyrics chords
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In the studio with me is Elizabeth Fraser from the Cocteau Twins.
Hiya.
Hi.
Thanks very much for coming in.
You're welcome.
I've asked you in specifically because I wanted to talk about, you know, not just poetry,
there's been a lot of stuff going on today, but about lyrics and about songwriting, which
I see as very much part of all that.
And I suppose I wanted to say, first of all, you
know, can you say something about the lyrics, you know, the Cocteau Twins lyrics, how you
go about writing songs, where that comes from?
It depends where I'm at in my head.
I mean, I saw them like whale's tails that you just
played.
The lyrics are words that I found by going through books and dictionaries written
in languages that I [Db] don't understand.
And then you put them all together?
[Ab] Yeah, I mean, the words don't have any meaning at all until they're sung, until I sing them.
[B] And
[Dbm]
So, will you start [N] off with a particular subject in mind, or have you just really sort of collected
these words like a butterfly collection and pieced them all together to make it?
I did.
I mean, I did it to sing so that I could sing something that wasn't just, you
know
Are they words that fit your voice, in a sense?
They, once I sing it, they do.
Right.
And then there's that sense that when you speak them, they then come to life, they
have a life of their own.
Well, I'm looking at these words now and they look, it just looks really clear, but
Is that the sort of scrapbook, as it were, from when you wrote that particular song?
Yeah, I pulled these out of
We're just looking at all these lists of
It's like the football pool does, isn't it?
There's a seven or eight lists of particular words.
My house is full of this stuff.
It's just full of it.
I get a bug.
I get a bug for words.
Right.
And, um
But I don't know what any of them mean.
And, um
Could you just read us some out?
Sort of run down one of those columns?
Well, part of
I'll just do the first part of Wheel's Tales.
Mm.
Cinque maculato luxe lomi.
You're full of all the coca-cola full on your neck.
Which I have no idea what it means, but
And where did you get them from?
I can't even remember.
I mean, I get them
I just pull them out of
foreign
languages books and stuff like that.
So you say that's the first part of Wheel's Tales, when you've just been here?
And I think we've actually got a snatch of that.
Maybe we could just play it in?
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Okay.
We've heard that.
Can you [Ebm] just tell us what those words are again?
Just run through them again.
Cinque maculato luxe lomi.
You're full of all the coca-cola full on your neck.
How do you remember that?
I mean, when you get out there to sing
They do.
And the melody.
You know, you just remember the melody.
And, uh
I don't know.
I just do.
I just do.
I mean, the music and the singing and the words created the feeling.
And, uh
I had a freedom doing this that I didn't have, singing English.
And has your writing style changed [F] since that time?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I just didn't have the courage to sing [E] English.
[N] I felt like I was shark bait.
I felt inadequate.
I didn't feel adequate as a lyricist.
So in a sense, there's a kind of a cover up there going on.
Oh, yeah.
It's a coping skill.
Right.
Really.
And how does that work now?
I mean, like, you know, the last couple of albums.
I may resort to this again.
I mean, it just stopped working for me.
I just
It just did.
And I found that when I tried to do this, I wasn't singing from my gut anymore.
I wasn't
I just had to move on.
And so [Abm] I began to [E] sing lyrics again that people would understand.
Right.
As in the lyrics on Heaven or Las Vegas and things like [N] that?
Yeah.
I mean, there was still a bit of
There's kind of stuff going on there, you know.
Yeah.
Sound rather than meaning.
But
I know Lawrence from Felt.
I once heard him say that, you know,
they've got all these kind of jazzy titles for records and everything.
And people say, you know, is this poetry?
Where do you get all this from?
He says, oh, you know, these are just words that I found and I've made most of it up.
And it just sounded so wonderful.
He sounded so elegant and eloquent and everything.
He is.
He is.
Yeah.
Because you did a bit of singing for them at one time, didn't you?
Yeah.
I did one song.
Right.
I did backing vocals on one song.
And was that because you were specially invited in or you were just hanging around the cafeteria when he was going through one of them?
I was hanging around.
So I usually just ended up on it because Robin was producing.
Yeah.
So what's going to happen to all these scrapbooks?
I mean, they're brilliantly conceived.
Are you going to sell them to Austin University in Texas then?
Oh, no.
Oh, God, no.
No.
I mean, just
I don't want to know what they mean because it's going to be ridiculous, you know.
I'm going to be singing about plum pudding and God knows what else, you know.
But it served a purpose, you know.
I really got a freedom from it and it worked.
It did work for me.
I remember sort of driving to work in the car and, you know, I was playing your albums and I was trying to kind of mouth these words and I'm thinking,
oh, I'm sure there's something going on here that I'm not quite sure about.
But I look like a goldfish there in the car and sort of saying and screaming all these things.
We're going to play Bluebeard in a minute.
Is that a song with a particular subject that started out as a subject rather than a sort of sense?
That album, [Ab] Four Calendar Cafe, was really
I knew I couldn't
I knew I had to
I was in a place where I needed to be more honest with myself.
So I immediately knew I was going to be singing lyrics.
That song like Bluebeard, the title is obviously very angry.
Yeah.
At the time I felt very trapped and I was experiencing
I was feeling my feelings for the first time basically.
And I was experiencing old anger and new anger.
[F] 30 years of it, really, all at the same time, all at once.
Bluebeard's not exactly a term of endearment, is it?
Oh, no.
And do you feel sort of untrapped by writing this song then?
Is it a kind of therapy?
It's not enough.
It helps, but it's not enough.
You need to do other things, you know.
You need to take action.
But yes, it does help.
Especially with
because I really affirmed myself with this song.
That [Ab] song was
I was being a
I was writing the way a responsible adult writes.
[Gb] And [Ab] it's about waking up and I was doubting and questioning.
[B] And I was
I even made my declaration, you know.
Well, let's play it and [Ab] let's listen to it.
Okay.
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In the studio with me is Elizabeth Fraser from the Cocteau Twins.
Hiya.
Hi.
Thanks very much for coming in.
You're welcome.
I've asked you in specifically because I wanted to talk about, you know, not just poetry,
there's been a lot of stuff going on today, but about lyrics and about songwriting, which
I see as very much part of all that.
And I suppose I wanted to say, first of all, you
know, can you say something about the lyrics, you know, the Cocteau Twins lyrics, how you
go about writing songs, where that comes from?
_ _ It depends where I'm at in my head.
I mean, I saw them like whale's tails that you just
played. _ _ _
The lyrics _ _ are words that I found by going through books and dictionaries written
in languages that I [Db] don't understand.
And then you put them all together?
[Ab] Yeah, I mean, the words don't have any meaning at all until they're sung, until I sing them.
_ [B] And_
[Dbm] _
So, will you start [N] off with a particular subject in mind, or have you just really sort of collected
these words like a butterfly collection and pieced them all together to make it?
I did.
I mean, I did it to sing so that I could sing something that wasn't just, you
know_
Are they words that fit your voice, in a sense?
They, once I sing it, they do.
Right.
And then there's that sense that when you speak them, they then come to life, they
have a life of their own. _ _
Well, I'm looking at these words now and they look, it just looks really clear, but_
Is that the sort of scrapbook, as it were, from when you wrote that particular song?
Yeah, I pulled these out of_
We're just looking at all these lists of_
It's like the football pool does, isn't it?
There's a seven or eight lists of particular words.
My house is full of this stuff.
It's just full of it.
I get a bug.
I get a bug for words.
Right.
And, um_
But I don't know what any of them mean.
And, um_
Could you just read us some out?
Sort of run down one of those columns?
Well, part of_
I'll just do the first part of Wheel's Tales.
_ Mm.
Cinque maculato luxe lomi.
You're full of all the coca-cola full on your neck.
Which I have no idea what it means, but_
And where did you get them from?
I can't even remember.
I mean, I get them_
I just pull them out of_
_foreign
languages books and stuff like that. _ _
So you say that's the first part of Wheel's Tales, when you've just been here?
And I think we've actually got a snatch of that.
Maybe we could just play it in?
[Ebm] _ _ _ _ [Bbm] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bbm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bbm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Gbm] _ _ _
_ Okay.
We've heard that.
Can you [Ebm] just tell us what those words are again?
Just run through them again.
_ Cinque maculato luxe lomi.
You're full of all the coca-cola full on your neck.
How do you remember that?
I mean, when you get out there to sing_
They do.
And the melody.
You know, you just remember the melody.
And, uh_
I don't know.
I just do.
I just do.
I mean, _ the music and the singing and the words created _ the feeling.
And, uh_
I had a freedom doing this that I didn't have, singing English.
_ _ And has your writing style changed [F] since that time?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I just didn't have the courage to sing [E] _ _ English.
[N] I felt like I was shark bait.
I felt inadequate.
I didn't feel adequate as a lyricist.
_ _ So in a sense, there's a kind of a cover up there going on.
Oh, yeah.
It's a coping skill.
Right.
Really.
And how does that work now?
I mean, like, you know, the last couple of albums.
I may resort to this again.
I mean, _ _ it just stopped working for me.
I just_
It just did.
And I found that when I tried to do this, I wasn't singing from my gut anymore.
I wasn't_ _
I just had to move on.
And so [Abm] I began to [E] sing lyrics again that people would understand.
Right.
As in the lyrics on Heaven or Las Vegas and things like [N] that?
Yeah.
I mean, there was still a bit of_
_ There's kind of stuff going on there, you know.
Yeah.
Sound rather than meaning.
_ _ But_
I know Lawrence from Felt.
I once heard him say that, you know,
they've got all these kind of jazzy titles for records and everything.
And people say, you know, is this poetry?
Where do you get all this from?
He says, oh, you know, these are just words that I found and I've made most of it up.
And it just sounded so wonderful.
He sounded so elegant and eloquent and everything.
He is.
He is.
Yeah.
Because you did a bit of singing for them at one time, didn't you?
Yeah.
I did one song.
Right.
I did backing vocals on one song.
And was that because you were specially invited in or you were just hanging around the cafeteria when he was going through one of them?
I was hanging around.
So I usually just ended up on it because Robin was producing.
Yeah.
So what's going to happen to all these scrapbooks?
I mean, they're brilliantly conceived.
Are you going to sell them to Austin University in Texas then?
Oh, no.
Oh, God, no.
No.
I mean, just_
I don't want to know what they mean because it's going to be ridiculous, you know.
I'm going to be singing about plum pudding and God knows what else, you know. _
But it served a purpose, you know.
I really got a freedom from it and it worked.
It did work for me.
I remember sort of driving to work in the car and, you know, I was playing your albums and I was trying to kind of mouth these words and I'm thinking,
oh, I'm sure there's something going on here that I'm not quite sure about.
But I look like a goldfish there in the car and sort of saying and screaming all these things.
_ We're going to play _ Bluebeard in a minute.
Is that a song with a particular subject that started out as a subject rather than a sort of sense? _ _ _
_ _ That album, [Ab] _ Four Calendar Cafe, was really_ _ _ _ _
I knew I couldn't_
I knew I had to_
I was in a place where I needed to be more honest with myself.
So I immediately knew I was going to be singing lyrics. _
_ That song like Bluebeard, the title is obviously very angry.
Yeah.
At the time I felt very trapped and I was experiencing_
I was feeling my feelings for the first time basically.
And _ I was experiencing old anger and new anger.
_ _ [F] 30 years of it, really, all at the same time, all at once.
Bluebeard's not exactly a term of endearment, is it?
Oh, no.
_ And do you feel sort of untrapped by writing this song then?
Is it a kind of therapy?
It's not enough.
It helps, but it's not enough.
You need to do other things, you know.
You need to take action.
But yes, it does help.
Especially with_
because I really affirmed myself with this song.
That [Ab] song _ was_
_ _ I was being a_
I was writing the way a responsible adult writes.
[Gb] And _ [Ab] it's about waking up and _ I was doubting and questioning.
[B] And I was_
I even made my declaration, you know.
Well, let's play it and [Ab] let's listen to it.
Okay.
_ [F] _ _ _ _