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‘Let’s talk about the song,’ continues Steve. ‘You mentioned a sense of urgency. Do you think that we are in a state of the world where urgency is sort of …’
M: ‘Yes, I think, if you're paying attention to what's going on in the world and, you know, what's going on in the Middle East; what's going on with the election; what's going on with the environment; what's going on with… there's just so much chaos and turmoil everywhere. And all signs point to everybody better wake up and start paying attention and, to the world around them and what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna be a part of the problem or a part of the solution?
But I also think people still need to be cheered on… we need to have fun. We can't be paralysed with all this negative information. You need to be given a, a sense of hope as well. So I think that ‘Four Minutes to Save the World’ sort of, you know, came from that idea. Could you save the world with a song? Could you make people wake up and, you know, so it's kind of like the answer is yes and no. Yeah.’
S: Are there songs of the past that you feel inspired you in that way?
M: Other songs that have inspired me? What? To sort of take responsibility?
S: Do you think there have been songs in the history of pop music that have… ?
M: I think, yeah, I think, John Lennon's song ‘Imagine’ is a perfect example of a song that's, first of all, it's just a great record. It's a great song, um, but the lyrics are genius and timeless and, you know, they work just as well when he wrote it as they do now. Yeah.
S: Let's go ahead and talk about ‘Candy Shop’. You chose it to be the first on the album. Why?
M: I think ‘Candy Shop's’ one of my favourite records and it sort of personifies the mood that I was in when I was making the record which is kind of cheeky, wanting to have fun, liking the idea of having a play on words. Wanting to dance. Lots of innuendo. I don't know. Yeah. I put it first 'cause it's also is a kind of an illustration of the variety of songs that are on the record 'cause when you go into a candy shop, you can get so many different things. And hopefully you can get that when you listen to the record.
There's more serious songs. There's more fun songs. There's more up tempo songs. There's more thoughtful songs. So, yeah.
S: Let's go back to ‘Four Minutes’. There are some things on that track that are just incredible, that beat and the horns and all that. Was that all brought in by Timberland?
M: Yeah, those are Timberland's horns, definitely. (She laughs)Sounds like a marching band. Yeah.
S: When did you have the lyrics when you heard the music or did the...
M: No, we wrote the lyrics, Justin and I after Timberland played us the beat and we sort of did it in stages. He gave us a bit of the music. We started writing the lyrics. We came up with a melody, then he started writing more music and that's really how all the songs were written, piecemeal.
S: And that goes right into another fantastic track. And there's so much going on and so many layers on ‘Give It To Me’… I was trying to write down some lines from it. There's just almost too much to...
M: Yeah. ‘Give It To Me’ is like the ultimate anthem kind of song. I think that will be a really great song to do live. Yeah. It's sort of, you can just see everybody, the whole room jumping. And it's the ultimate like sort of, you know, just do it. You know what I mean? Give me all you've got, don't try to stop me. I think it's a great song to work out to. (laugh)
S: And what's the one line, ‘You're Only Here To Win’?
M: Absolutely.
S: 'Cause it's definitely sort of upbeat and joyous too.
M: Yeah. Well, that's how I felt that day in the studio with Pharrell and, I think by the time we got to that stage of the record we'd already written several songs together. We just decided we needed to make some crazy up tempo dance song and ‘Give It To Me’ was the result. Yeah.
S: It could almost work in any setting. It's a great pop melody and structure as a pop song. How did it come together in this form?
M: Um, I don't know. I mean, honestly, I didn't over-think how we were gonna to come up with a song. We just wanted to write catchy melodies and I think Pharrell's quite genius at coming up with music that has a lot of crossover appeal, you know. It could be kind of R&B. It's sort of pop. It's, you could hear it on the radio. You could hear it in a club. Um, so we just, like I said, we just wanted to write songs that you couldn't get out of your head. Yeah.
To be continued … |
