Write out the song lyrics by hand
When I was growing up, my favourite albums were the ones that came with a booklet of song lyrics. In 2002 I spent hours processing my teenage angst while singing to Avril Lavigne’s debut album, Let Go. Her booklet had lyrics full of slang that made her feel authentic and relatable.
But for the albums that didn’t come with song lyrics, I had a black spiral notebook filled with handwritten lyrics of my favourite songs. And in some ways, that process was more fun, although it was a commitment.
I would start by listening to the first line of the first verse a few times until I was sure (or as sure as I could be) of the words. Then I'd pause the CD track and write down that line in my notebook.
The tricky thing was that you had to listen to the whole song from the beginning to check each line. But by the time I’d worked out the lyrics to the bridge and final chorus, I had rote-learned the rest of the song. Those lyrics are still in my long-term memory too. (I know this because Skye and I had an impromptu living-room concert as part of our research for this post).
I didn’t know anyone else who kept a lyrics book. At some point, I showed it to someone I thought was a friend and they were not impressed. I let them convince me that the idea was childish, and threw the book out sometime later. But I wish I’d listened to myself rather than being swayed by whether they thought it was cool. It would be fun to look at it again and reminisce about what I was listening to more than twenty years ago.
Technology and time do improve some things: I’m grateful for noise-cancelling headphones and the ability to skip to my favourite part of a song. And I like that I can now look up the lyrics of a song online, especially if it’s in Spanish! (Such a function in childhood would have saved me from memorising and then singing so many mondegreens.) But I’ve never rote-learned so many lyrics again.
There was something magical about those hours spent writing out song lyrics purely for the joy of it, even though from the outside it might have looked pointless or unproductive. I’ve been trying to reclaim that childhood creativity and sense of curiosity. Not everything has to be geared towards efficiency, and your process doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else or have any higher purpose.
I wrote the first draft of these words in a notebook that I bought from Typa, the printing and paper arts centre that was one of my favourite experiences during last summer's family trip to Tartu in Estonia. The paper is smooth and thick, and I love the sound my pen nib makes as it meets the paper. Writing by hand isn’t efficient, but it helps me to think and it makes my heart sing.
Maybe I’ll try writing out the lyrics to Lavigne’s recent collaboration with Billy Idol in that notebook. Because the little girl who decoded song lyrics is still part of me, and sometimes it’s fun to let her out to play.
What did you love to do as a kid? Is there something that you stopped doing, maybe because of negative feedback from others, that it could be fun to try again?
Or is there something you wanted to do as a kid but never got to try? Maybe this is your moment to do so!
Sketches from Granada celebrates every-day moments of connection with strangers, friends and ourselves. I know how easy it is not to be present in your life, and I hope these sketches inspire you to seek out these moments worth savouring in your own life.
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