getting into the script, then breaking it down

Okay. So this is the way of how I got to this point.

First, a friend on FB sent me a YouTube clip of The Voice UK, which features judges Jessie J (such a solid voice btw - like an R&B influenced Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland), will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas, classic crooner Sir Tom Jones and Danny O'Donoghue from Irish three-piece band, The Script.

I was surprised because I had no idea the UK Voice panel consisted of these four artists.

Then, I was amused, because I find tremendous visual similarities between Danny O'Donoghue and Kim Jaejoong, former member of K-pop boy band 동방신기/TVXQ and current member of JYJ.

Man, is it just me?!?! But I TOTALLY see it. IT'S THERE. KEEP LOOKING. Maybe this picture?

Maybe you just have to see them both live in video. Or maybe you have to have watched enough Jaejoong to see the similarity. Or maybe it's just Jaejoong's newish, pristinely straight nose. The feline face shape? I REALLY THINK I'M ON TO SOMETHING THOUGH.

Anyway, after discovering this Irish-Korean counterpart phenomenon, I started looking into The Script's recent activities. I hadn't realized the new song I'd been hearing on the radio, "Hall of Fame," was by them! And that will.i.am was featured on it, and that the collaboration is due to the whole Voice UK gig! Many pop discoveries.

I've since listened to their recently released album, #3, on Spotify, and my favorite track on it is "No Words" - I think overall it's one of the best on the album so I really hope they release it. Going through their discography, I discovered that they do a lot of pop-rap-singing in a number of their songs, even in the first album, despite their band categorization. I enjoy hip hop beats and piano hooks, but my taste tends to veer toward melodic lines and singing, so I still consider "Breakeven" from the first album as the most solid song by them.

Anyway, that led me to wander over to their Twitter accounts, and I saw on @TheScript_Danny the announcement that the official music video for "Six Degrees of Separation" had just been released. Clicked through to YouTube/Vevo and watched it, and a few other things struck me:



Mr. Danny has some amazing eyelashes. Mark Sheehan, the bald band member with the reddish facial hair, has a great voice. Totally works for pop and could see him singing other stuff too. Interesting reggae intonations there. Do more singing, Mark!

Then, the lyrics started to get at me. I'm a lyrics person, so I tend to assign as much import to the words as I do the melody and rhythm of a song. The chorus is a count-up of the "six degrees of separation," and I KNOW it's really pompous of me, though I don't mean to be, but I started doing a little editing in my head. The original chorus goes:

First, you think the worst is a broken heart
What's gonna kill you is the second part
And the third, is when your world splits down the middle
And fourth, you're gonna think that you fixed yourself
Fifth, you see them out with someone else
And the sixth, is when you admit that you may have fucked up a little

I was (very mildly, really more like just musing) wondering why the connectors didn't work more in harmony with each other, really build on that progression, such as:

First, you think the worst is a broken heart
But what's gonna kill you is the second part
And the third, is when your world splits down the middle
And fourth is when you think that you fixed yourself
Then fifth, you see them out with someone else
And the sixth, is when you admit that you may have fucked up a little

Of course this all reflects my preference in language and as a songwriter, wanting things to read as smoothly as a paragraph of a story, and I have no idea as to how Danny O'Donoghue's thought process goes when he's penning words to a song. Maybe it's exactly the way he wanted it, or maybe it's the way it just came out in the honesty of the moment, and reflects the way he thinks and speaks and his natural use of language. But I especially would have liked the "then" to contrast, as well as lead in, between thinking you've fixed yourself and seeing them with someone else.

I don't know.

Maybe the standard of English is just going up in smoke, maybe I'm just being a stick in the mud. That sentiment (on the standard of English) doesn't have anything to do with the way the chorus went though - songwriters must and should write in a way that's true to them. It's actually my dissatisfaction with how there's an apostrophe missing in their lyric video, and really, professionals should know better. I wish there had been a competent proofer T_T:


SEE AT 0:37?! IT SHOULD BE "LIFE'S OK," NOT "LIFES OK." Oy. Sigh. And it's not just a stylistic thing because right above that line, they've used "YOU'RE."

But I really like how they use "ye." ;D

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P.S. I am by far far from a perfect linguist or grammarinator myself. I may not be the most diehard Script fan, but I do like the band and think that they make catchy tunes, have great production skills and have a very genuine, refreshing, endearing attitude, and I'm glad they're part of the music landscape. Sad I missed their Los Angeles tour dates!

You can buy The Script's newest album #3 from their official site shop, Amazon and iTunes.