Thoughts on the Songs for Sorrow EP?

[Gatagordinha]

The way I see it, the timing of the EP will lull people (the casual fan/sceptical critic) into thinking Mika's gone off at a tangent and maybe abandoned his breezy pop credentials forever..they'll either write him off or take him more seriously depending on their opinion of the EP...and then suddenly, just as they are thinking they know what Mika's about after all... WHAM!!!!!!!!! the second album hits the airwaves in late summer and once again people's expectations are challenged; Mika's back with big pop songs and full-on studio bells and whistles. Whether they love him or hate him, they will have to admit he is versatile and no one-trick pony. That's good for his longevity.

 

My guess is those who hated him will still hate him whatever, but maybe with a tiny seed of respect buried in the backs of their minds .

[Marilyn Mastin]

I actually think it's great what he's doing. From what I've read of the press releases, he's been playing songs from the album as well as songs from the EP, and those other songs are mentioned, along with ones we've yet to hear. So anyone reading the articles will realise an album is coming. There is also talk (in one article) of a single in July, posibly BIOTG. so, before the album hits the shelves, people will realise Mika is still into the pop songs.

However, the songs from the acoustic EP WILL make people realise that Mika is a serious songwriter, and a truly amazing singer with a phenominal vocal range. No one will be able to dismiss him anymore, but as someone has said, those that hate him, will hate him whatever he does. But others will hopefully take him more seriously.

[Gracekelly85]

I can say that I'mlooking forward to receive the EP cause I like so much the new songs

I like his work.

[Nadine]

I think Blue Eyes is brilliant, it's stuck in my head all the time

The intro of Lady Jane is really similar to The Fear by Lily Allen, so when the song starts I always think it's that song xD I don't really love the song, but I don't think it's bad or awkward or anything.

Lonely Alcoholic is just a nice song, and Toy Boy has got a nice arrangement with the clarinet and bells :]

[harlequeen]

hm as long as he does not come up with terms like 'he's like a hard candy with a surprise center' I will not call his lyrics awkward

 

but on the other hand english is not my native language, and I often wonder wether some line that strucks me as a bit weird is something he made up all by himself or just a usual phrase I just never have heard before

 

regarding the songs of the EP I must say that I do like them, especially Toy Boy and Lady Jane. I guess it's because story telling songs had a huge influence in my life as there is a big history of this type of songs in my region. There's even an extra word for them in my dialect. You have to keep in mind that story telling songs often are aimed at an audience of all ages, coming from a background of traveling singers/comedians who traveled from village to village entertaining people on their way. So usually the lyrics are written in a way that every age can get something out of it. The kids get a easy to understand fairy tale, and the grownups get the twists of the story and what is written between the lines.

[sienna]

 

but on the other hand english is not my native language, and I often wonder wether some line that strucks me as a bit weird is something he made up all by himself or just a usual phrase I just never have heard before

 

 

Your whole post has a lot of interesting points of view!

The dear old language issue:wink2:…yes it’s one of my concerns all the time, because I know by experience from my own language that there always are a lot of references and associations that are really hard to understand, sometimes you need to have the full culture to “get it”!

 

 

 

regarding the songs of the EP I must say that I do like them, especially Toy Boy and Lady Jane. I guess it's because story telling songs had a huge influence in my life as there is a big history of this type of songs in my region. There's even an extra word for them in my dialect. You have to keep in mind that story telling songs often are aimed at an audience of all ages, coming from a background of traveling singers/comedians who traveled from village to village entertaining people on their way. So usually the lyrics are written in a way that every age can get something out of it. The kids get a easy to understand fairy tale, and the grownups get the twists of the story and what is written between the lines.

 

This made me think of what Mika himself said when he was talking about the how the TV series Simpson’s cold be of interest for all ages, because we see and understand different things in it depending on age and references!

I love this story telling songs where I can use my own imagination to continue to build to the context!

[Christine]

hm as long as he does not come up with terms like 'he's like a hard candy with a surprise center' I will not call his lyrics awkward

 

That is an example of a lame lyric. "Lonely is so lonely alone" is about as awkward as they come and no matter how many hundreds of times I hear this line I still cringe.

 

"Here's another reason why you shouldn't eat fish" could just about top it, except that it at least makes sense.

 

One thing I would say that is an improvement with the lyrics of all the new songs is that they make sense. There is some stuff on LICM that I still don't understand on any level.

[dilek]

and the way he sings "...shouldn't eat fiiiiIIIIiiiish"

it just cracks me up everytime:teehee:

 

and he's singing it so serious,it's killing me:lmao:

 

 

update: today the first 3 lines of the LA has grown on me,i'm making progress:naughty:

[zoots14]

"Here's another reason why you shouldn't eat fish" could just about top it, except that it at least makes sense.

 

I love that line actually :roftl:

 

The problem is with the timing, as it should have been released last year and not as a runup to a new album. The press and most fans are going to view this EP as a comeback of sorts and be misled into thinking that this is some strange new direction Mika has taken with his music.

 

Honestly if I had heard Lady Jane and Lonely Alcoholic on Mikasounds without hearing Blame it on the Girls, etc. at the secret gig and watching clips on his new music vlog - I would have freaked out.

 

Very good point - makes a lot of sense.

 

 

But some of the word choices are terribly grating and I can't get past them. All of that fish talk and words like "abort" do not work and strike me as either being too lazy to construct a more fluid and elegant way of expressing the ideas or contrived to make a convenient rhyme.

 

I don't like them much. If I had to choose one, it would be LA. I like the tunes, but the words, especially LJ are so cheesy and off beat, they mean nothing to me.

I don't like Mika's voice in these songs either, it sounds very manufactured and what Christine calls Broadway cheese.

 

I actually disagree here but I know I'm the odd one out... I love the lyrics in Lady Jane. I don't find them awkward & lazy, I find them interesting, off-beat and kind of brave to put it out there because the reaction it's getting is kind of predictable.

 

In fact, it's part of what makes me really like the song. I find it so much more interesting to match a beautiful sounding song (to my ears) with really unusual lyrics, rather than mushing up some maudlin pablum and spoon feeding it to us. He normally matches sad lyrics with happy sounds, and this is just another form of contrast... he's matching a lovely sound (again, to my ears) with odd and bold lyrics instead of what you would expect.

 

I agree that Lonely Alcoholic sounds broadway & cheesy, and the lyrics don't resonate with me. I wonder if he wrote it while he was reading Bukowski... except it didn't translate well. His voice is really broadway there as well, but I don't feel that is the case in LJ. I love his voice there!

[Naectegale]

That is an example of a lame lyric. "Lonely is so lonely alone" is about as awkward as they come and no matter how many hundreds of times I hear this line I still cringe.

 

"Here's another reason why you shouldn't eat fish" could just about top it, except that it at least makes sense.

 

One thing I would say that is an improvement with the lyrics of all the new songs is that they make sense. There is some stuff on LICM that I still don't understand on any level.

 

That line is really funny - and without it the song might be a tad pretentious - I think Mika gets away with this song, by being slightly tongue in cheek about it.

[dcdeb]

Coming back to Lady Jane, I just do not like Mika's voice in it. It just doesn't sound natural to me, I don't know how else to describe it, it makes me cringe, sorry but it does.

 

I feel the same, bab. It hasn't grown on me, no matter how often I've

listened to it the last few days, either... It just leaves me feeling

 

Am I the only one in love with "Lonely Alcoholic"?

I think it's genius.

 

I don't know if I'd say "in love" but I do like it very much.

 

I like the lyrics, I like the piano, I like the whole feeling of the song.

As much as I don't like Lady Jane, that's how much I like Lonely

Alcoholic.

 

That is an example of a lame lyric. "Lonely is so lonely alone" is about as awkward as they come and no matter how many hundreds of times I hear this line I still cringe.

 

Oh, all this while I thought it was just me! It is really such a cringe-inducing

line. I remember when I first heard about Mika back in January 2007, and

I was scouring the internet for any shred of news about him, there

were a lot of myspace accounts with fake Mikas, and various LiCM songs

on them. One had "Any Other World," and when I heard it for the first

time I was like "Huh?" That lyric in particular just struck me so wrong.

I've since come to appreciate Any Other World when it's performed live --

love the strings and the whole vibe it creates -- but I still usually skip over it

when I play the CD. (Sorry Mika!)

 

"Here's another reason why you shouldn't eat fish" could just about top it, except that it at least makes sense.

 

"special yes, but lucky ain't"? That's the line that got me. Feels so

contrived, so forced.

 

One thing I would say that is an improvement with the lyrics of all the new songs is that they make sense. There is some stuff on LICM that I still don't understand on any level.

 

I think the lyrics of the other songs we've heard so far -- not just these

on the EP, but also Blame it on the Girls and the few lines I can make out

of Good Gone Girl -- are definitely superior to the older songs.

Toy Boy is quite clever, but never feels contrived, and works

on many different levels, leaving room for a variety of interpretations.

I think that's one of the reasons Lady Jane bugs me so much --

because the other three songs, are so much more interesting lyrically.

They are more involved, and involving, and to me make the songs so much

more meaningful.

[Suzy]

 

Coming back to Lady Jane, I just do not like Mika's voice in it. It just doesn't sound natural to me, I don't know how else to describe it, it makes me cringe, sorry but it does.

If I get to like it at any time I will let you know.

 

I feel the same, bab. It hasn't grown on me, no matter how often I've

listened to it the last few days, either... It just leaves me feeling

 

Me too! I keep visualizing the nuns singing with that falsetto from a scene in The Sound of Music.

[sariflor]

That is an example of a lame lyric. "Lonely is so lonely alone" is about as awkward as they come and no matter how many hundreds of times I hear this line I still cringe.

 

"Here's another reason why you shouldn't eat fish" could just about top it, except that it at least makes sense.

 

One thing I would say that is an improvement with the lyrics of all the new songs is that they make sense. There is some stuff on LICM that I still don't understand on any level.

 

That first one: No explanation required, really . I don't think that anyone could ever understand that one .

The second line is one of the bits in LJ that I find horrible, as I think that this line just sounds wrong (even if it does make sense in the context of the story, it just sounds horrid) and it totally makes me cringe when he sings it.

Way too obvious and mundane.

And re the LICM reference: agree. Some of the lines in Big Girl or a few other songs I am still struggling to see the sense in. The material that we've seen for the second album is a hundred times better .

 

 

 

and the way he sings "...shouldn't eat fiiiiIIIIiiiish"

it just cracks me up everytime:teehee:

 

and he's singing it so serious,it's killing me:lmao:

 

 

update: today the first 3 lines of the LA has grown on me,i'm making progress:naughty:

[vixenbbw]

Just to throw it into the mix....I have always loved the line "lonely is so lonely alone" I love the way it feels when I sing it, like I'm really aware of my tongue. A lovely example of alliteration don't you think?

As well as this pysical love of the line it really speaks to me emotionally.......I never feel lonely but it really makes me imagine how someone who does must feel. Like it's hard enough to deal with loneliness when you're around people but impossible to cope with when you're isolated.

 

I've gone on a bit about one line from a 2 year old CD but it always gets such a hard time and I had to stick up for it yet again!!

[RAK1]

The lyric "lonely, is so lonely, alone" really hit home for me at a certain point in 2007, on a very personal level. So it makes perfect sense to me.

[Christine]

I actually disagree here but I know I'm the odd one out... I love the lyrics in Lady Jane. I don't find them awkward & lazy, I find them interesting, off-beat and kind of brave to put it out there because the reaction it's getting is kind of predictable.

 

Yes it's highly predictable that he will receive a negative reaction to awful lyrics.

 

... he's matching a lovely sound (again, to my ears) with odd and bold lyrics instead of what you would expect.

 

But there are far better ways to do the odd and bold lyrics as Toy Boy illustrates. Barbie girls, the meanest hag, voodoo pins poking eyes out.

 

You cannot compare "more than an illustration, points of articulation" with "here's another reason why you shouldn't eat fish". One is brilliantly descriptive and fantastical, the other is just a boring sentence that makes for an awkward line in a song.

 

Hag is also an ugly word but the character is meant to be ugly. Constantly referring to Lady Jane as a fish is sort of repulsive and I wouldn't think that's meant to be the idea.

 

It's all a bit rambling and repetitive and I actually can't make heads or tails of what is going on with this guy in the water. It just never quite comes together as a well told story, even though the basic idea has a lot of potential.

 

've since come to appreciate Any Other World when it's performed live -- love the strings and the whole vibe it creates -- but I still usually skip over it when I play the CD. (Sorry Mika!)

 

That's exactly how I feel about it. But I've found that my feelings about the tracks verus the live performances are almost totally inverse.

 

I think the Grace Kelly track is one of the greatest records of all time but I don't care if I ever hear it at a concert again. Any Other World is one of my favourite songs at the gigs, especially in bigger venues with the string accompaniment.

 

I think Relax and Love Today are probably the only two songs that I really love on the album and during the gigs.

 

Anyway I think I'm going to enjoy all these EP songs live so I'm not going to fault it too much.

[Christine]

Just to throw it into the mix....I have always loved the line "lonely is so lonely alone" I love the way it feels when I sing it, like I'm really aware of my tongue. A lovely example of alliteration don't you think?

 

I don't think repeating the same root word 3 times counts as a good example of alliteration.

 

Someone once told me that they thought the line originally was "Human is so lonely alone" which makes a lot more sense to me, especially given that the following line is "So human as I am..."

[RAK1]

I lived alone for five years. I mean completely alone, without friends or anybody. That line is the most poignant line of song I've ever heard. But to someone who hasn't ever experienced it for any amount of time, it probably does sound really cheesy and dumb for it's alliteration and seeming redundancy.

 

 

 

It makes sense on about three levels without really thinking about it and at least one of those is HILARIOUS, but I'm filthy that way.

 

 

 

Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense or that it's bad. Just means you don't like it and there's nothing wrong with not liking something.

 

My thoughts exactly ;-)

[Christine]

But to someone who hasn't ever experienced it for any amount of time, it probably does sound really cheesy and dumb for it's alliteration and seeming redundancy.

 

It has nothing to do with my experiences with loneliness. It's just a poorly constructed sentence and as such it makes me cringe. Lonely is not a noun so it just sounds wrong and since he uses the same word again in the same sentence it just sounds dumb. Like whoever wrote it doesn't have a moderate grasp of the English language.

 

Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense or that it's bad. Just means you don't like it and there's nothing wrong with not liking something.

 

There are lyrics on LICM that don't make sense to anyone except Mika. And I'm simply guessing that they make sense to Mika and aren't utter nonsense. I don't dislike all these lyrics, they just don't have any meaning to me because I have no idea WTF he's talking about and neither does anyone else from what I've read on MFC the past 2.5 years.

[RAK1]

It has nothing to do with my experiences with loneliness. It's just a poorly constructed sentence and as such it makes me cringe. Lonely is not a noun so it just sounds wrong and since he uses the same word again in the same sentence it just sounds dumb. Like whoever wrote it doesn't have a moderate grasp of the English language.

 

 

 

There are lyrics on LICM that don't make sense to anyone except Mika. And I'm simply guessing that they make sense to Mika and aren't utter nonsense. I don't dislike all these lyrics, they just don't have any meaning to me because I have no idea WTF he's talking about and neither does anyone else from what I've read on MFC the past 2.5 years.

 

Maybe, because not all of us, have expressed what his lyrics mean to us.

I prefer not to carp on about how his lyrics affect me, or what they mean to me, because it's personal, and some of them remind me of things I'd rather not, or am not ready to, discuss with EVERYONE on here, now or maybe ever.

So it's a bit of a sweeping statement to say that anyone here doesn't know what he's talking about, because as with lyrics with any songwriter, everyone has an interpretation of them, and you don't know, that it's a possibility that someones interpretation matches Mikas. Even if they aren't aware of it themselves.

[Christine]

I prefer not to carp on about how his lyrics affect me, or what they mean to me, because it's personal, and some of them remind me of things I'd rather not, or am not ready to, discuss with EVERYONE on here, now or maybe ever.

 

I am speaking about literal meanings, not how the songs affect anyone emotionally. People are so confused about some literal meanings that we haven't been able to agree on what the lyrics actually are in some cases. That's why there are so many pleas to Mika to publish the lyrics with the album this time.

 

Let's take the line "no need to fantasize since I was in my braces."

 

WTF does that mean???

 

"Fork out my daylight." Eh?

 

"You make me dizzy when you play me like a kid with a crown."

 

(maybe this one is just me, I don't get the reference if there is one)

[guylainem123]

I am speaking about literal meanings, not how the songs affect anyone emotionally. People are so confused about some literal meanings that we haven't been able to agree on what the lyrics actually are in some cases. That's why there are so many pleas to Mika to publish the lyrics with the album this time.

 

Let's take the line "no need to fantasize since I was in my braces."

 

WTF does that mean???

 

"Fork out my daylight." Eh?

 

"You make me dizzy when you play me like a kid with a crown."

 

(maybe this one is just me, I don't get the reference if there is one)

 

i always thought he said like a kid with a crayon! (not that it makes any more sense )

[zoots14]

You cannot compare "more than an illustration, points of articulation" with "here's another reason why you shouldn't eat fish". One is brilliantly descriptive and fantastical, the other is just a boring sentence that makes for an awkward line in a song.

 

Well, I like that jacket and I will wear it!!!

:lmfao:

 

 

But seriously, two different genres - two different lyrical styles... (and I know you'll just counter that with "poop is poop" LOL!). I don't think we're going to agree on this if we both believe we're right. So... cheers!

 

Let's take the line "no need to fantasize since I was in my braces."

 

Ok, you have a point there. Never understood wtf that was supposed to mean.

[Kata]

I just want to say that I love reading the conversation here, which I think makes a lot more sense that Mika's lyrics

No really, just realized, when reading what Rose said, how rude I actually sound when I "attack" the lyrics and I'm actually sorry about that I think I sometimes forget that we don't all have the same way of approaching things and that we don't find the same things important

Anyway I think I would just like to clarify that when I bang my head into the wall over a lyric, then it's because lyrics are very important to me, I like clever play with words, I look at how the sentence is constructed and so on But that doesn't mean that I don't know for a fact that lonely is so lonely alone, it really is - just can't help thinking it would have sounded a hell of a lot better to say that human is so lonely alone, in fact I would have found that incredibly poetic and beautiful rather than eh...

[lollipop_monkey]

II think I sometimes forget that we don't all have the same way of approaching things and that we don't find the same things important

 

Anyway I think I would just like to clarify that when I bang my head into the wall over a lyric, then it's because lyrics are very important to me, I like clever play with words, I look at how the sentence is constructed and so on

 

Aww, Kata.

 

I think it also has to do with the fact that you have a sense of wit, rhyme, meaning and meter that Mika could only dream of having. I'm sure with a few changes you could make the lyrics to Lady Jane as genius as Toy Boy.