As noted in my previous blog, I have embarked on a new CD titled, “Travelogue”. It will feature songs inspired (in one way or another) by my travels around the world. Work on it continues, and the second song completed is a French flavored song titled, “Give Me Love”.
“Give Me Love” began innocently while walking on a downtown Los Angeles street. The weather was perfect – something Los Angeles was known for and is experiencing less and less. On this perfect day I couldn’t help but notice how many people were oblivious to the exquisite temperature, the chirping birds, and the beautiful light. Instead, they were intently engaged with their cell phones. It made me think about how much of life we don’t experience. How watching screens takes us out of the world, and brings isolation. It’s an interesting new world obsessed with sending texts, posting photos, seeking likes and followers. A feeling of disconnection came about, and I thought it would make a great song.
A memory of Paris
That feeling of disconnect brought me back to my last trip to France in October of 2011. It was in Paris, and the weather was clear and crisp and the city was beautiful. What came to mind was a local boulangerie just down the street from where I was staying, which I patronized for breakfast each morning. The same stout woman wearing an apron (perhaps the owner?) would wait on me each morning from behind the counter. We recognized each other each day, but she never smiled or made me feel welcome in her bakery. She was much more at ease with what seemed were the local Parisians. She always seemed kind of perturbed and impatient with me, as opposed to her light and friendly demeanor when interacting with her fluent French speaking customers. It definitely added a bit of discomfort and alienation to an otherwise gorgeous city.
Paris at Night, 2011
A song with a flavor of France is born
The Los Angeles walk and the memory of my Parisian breakfast haunt made it clear to me that the one thing we all need, and often don’t generate, is love. Thoughts about my past, feelings of loneliness that have come and gone throughout my life, living in this heightened technological world, and this need we all have for love, all came together, and the song, “Give Me Love” was born. To give the song a French accent (so to speak), my producer came up with the idea of adding an accordion to the chorus. It adds the just the right amount of bittersweetness and reflectiveness, capturing the emotion I was aiming for perfectly. A great complement to the chorus’ lyrics:
In a world so populated
Why do I feel isolated
With so many fast connections
Sitting in the palm of my own hand
Give me love
Always looking for creative expression, I’ve begun taking a series of photos for each of the songs to complement the CD. One is included here at the top (another, for the song “Travelogue”, appears at the beginning of the previous blog entry). I’m using artifacts from my travels and life in each photo to express the themes of each song. As I continue working on the CD and photographs I’ll continue to blog about it.
As always, thanks for reading, please subscribe, and stay tuned for more!
Song lyrics © Jay Jacobson
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