In my view, a song writer has to let the singer own the song. I don't mean that the singer literally owns the song and gets all the royalties. What I mean is that as a song writer you have to let the singer take your song and sing it like they own it. Everyone that does a song will put their own personality into the song and will put in their own feelings to the song. It may or may not reflect how you initially intended the song to sound, but as far as I'm concerned, doing it differently doesn't mean its not right. Who says you were right anyway. Let the singer be right. If the singer does it how you intended it to be, then you were probably right - at least that's how I satisfy my ego.
This video is from a performance by Irene Kirk at the Magpies Extravaganza on May 24th at the Expressionz Cafe. The song is called Two Roses. Its a song I wrote in my car on the way home from a song writing workshop about 3 months ago. I've been after Irene to do the song for about 2 months. We got together at Wayne and Irene's house the night before the extravaganza and worked it out that evening. She ask me 'how do you want it to be sung". I told her I wanted her to take the song and make it her own. We had to work on emphasis to fit with the music and in the end Irene actually does the song the way I intended it to be sung. I've never really be comfortable singing it myself and to get someone else to sing it, it is a great feeling.
The performance in the video is the first time the song has been played in public. It is the first time that Irene sang it in public. We did it again a the Java Express Open Mike a night later. I think Irene was a bit nervous about doing the song, but each time she does it, it becomes more and more "her" song.
Anyway, watch the video. Hope you like the song. Thanks to Larysa for taking the video and sharing it with us. In a few months I'll try to get another video of Irene doing the song, and we'll how it sounds then.
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