New lyrics

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about trying to write lyrics for a song whose music I had written a few months earlier for the Tzora song festival. The dream about walking with the Queen did not return, so the tune lay without lyrics for a long time. In fact, I had forgotten about it, but in any case, I felt no impulse to write lyrics.

Writing about peppermint tea and qualia the other day caused me to wonder whether I might be able to write a song whose lyrics discuss qualia. Today I had the time, and to my pleasure I managed to write the following lyric.

What is it like to be a bat?
Us humans never will know that
What is the taste of young white wine?
The words you choose don't match with mine

Philosophers have coined a name
To label mental states like pain
Like tasting tea or seeing blue,
They view things differently from me or you

Qualia denote how things seem to us
The experience of fun, the touch of a loved one
I can't explain them to you, you can't explain them to me
Qualia, qualia, qualia, qualia, ah…..

We all agree that sea and sky
Relax us but no one knows why
A rose by any name smells sweet
But can a  honeycomb be beat?

A limitation here applies
We feel things which we can't describe
The green of eye, the red of sand
These are things that we can't understand

How was it for me? I thought you enjoyed it
You're glowing like the sun, come let's repeat it
Qualia denote how things seem to us
The experience of fun, the touch of a loved one
I can't explain them to you, you can't explain them to me
Qualia, qualia, qualia, qualia, ah…..

Whilst writing those words (which took a few hours), I was reminded of the two main differences between English and Hebrew in terms of songwriting: Hebrew is more terse (fewer connecting words) and the emphasis falls on a different place in the word. Thus the original lyrics contained more words and the tune was written to fit them. In English, I was constrained to use mainly monosyllabic words, although I managed to fit in 'Philosophers' - but that didn't leave much room on the same line! In terms of emphasis, "things seem to us" might seem normal when read from the page but have to be sung in an awkward manner. When spoken, the emphasis is on "seem" but when sung, the syllables "seem to" are on weak beats and "us" gets emphasised. Who knew that writing lyrics could be so technical?

Now that the lyrics are complete, I can work on the arrangement. The original was deliberately vanilla, as the idea was to bring the lyrics to the forefront; the arrangement was simply to provide a background for them. But now that I have taken complete ownership of the song, I feel free to change the arrangement. I suspect that the macro structure of the song will stay the same but I have changed a few instruments. The bass part needs some work but I don't know yet whether any other parts will be revised.

I also discovered that there is a song called 'Qualia' on SoundCloud although naturally it sounds nothing like mine. It is also a world class luxury resort in the Whitsundays. qualia is a private world of sensory perfection on Hamilton Island (Australia).