smudie http://www.smudie.com/ a Scot, a lyricist, living in Paris // écossais, parolier (en anglais), résidant à Paris en Copyright 2010 Fri, 21 May 2010 11:22:57 +0100 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification A guinea pig I met in Texas Girouette, the eagerly-anticipated first album from General Bye Bye that was released this week on Greed Recordings.

The album was recorded before I started working with the band so doesn't feature any of my work. However, at yesterday's gig they did perform two new tracks for which I've written the lyrics, including Emmylou, which lead singer Philippe introduced as being "a story about a guinea pig I met in Texas, that Stuart Mudie turned into a song".

In fact, my lyrics were about a hamster, not a guinea pig, but it's still a great tune.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2010/05/a-guinea-pig-i-met-in-texas.html http://www.smudie.com/2010/05/a-guinea-pig-i-met-in-texas.html generalbyebye smudie emmylou general bye bye lyrics smudie Fri, 21 May 2010 11:22:57 +0100 Honeycomb

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2010/03/honeycomb.html http://www.smudie.com/2010/03/honeycomb.html eliotE smudie eliotE honeycomb lyrics smudie song video Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:05:30 +0100 Broadening my horizons Cactus, Ashtray and Crayon are probably most representative of how I write, I do venture outside my rock and folk ghetto from time to time as well.

Lately I've been in the studio with a pair of electro producers from Versailles called Juan Carlos, working on a track that begins "Like a piece of chocolate, I'm slowly melting beneath your touch, babe"; I've launched a collaboration with a very funky young singer called Marlene Rodrigues; and I've written a song called Kiss By Kiss for Ashton Kennedy.

Sometimes it's good to broaden your horizons.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2010/03/broadening-my-horizons.html http://www.smudie.com/2010/03/broadening-my-horizons.html ashtonkennedy juancarlos marlenerodrigues smudie kiss by kiss smudie Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:12:31 +0100 Business, as usual Candy Pop Folk, including The Whisper Of The Leaves and Rules Are Made To Be Broken.

Candy Pop Folk is the most recent release from Kosinus, a successful French music library that supplies instrumental music and songs for use in advertising, documentaries, films and other media.

They may have been created for expressly commercial purposes, but they're still nice little songs that I'm proud to have written.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2010/03/business-as-usual.html http://www.smudie.com/2010/03/business-as-usual.html kosinus smudie candy pop folk kosinus lyrics rules are made to be broken smudie songs the whisper of the leaves Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:06:42 +0100 Oliver Peel Session #16 Early Saturday evening, my daughter and I were among the forty or fifty lucky people who gathered in an apartment at a secret location somewhere in Paris to watch Rivkah perform at the Oliver Peel Session #16.



She even sang the song we wrote together, Splitting The Atom - and it was the first time I'd ever heard it!

It was quite a moving experience to discover one of my songs in a live setting, as opposed to listening to an mp3, and together with the intimate atmosphere of the "concert en appartement", it all added up to make a beautiful moment for me.

Plus, my daughter told me afterwards she was very proud.

Vielen Dank Oliver, merci Rivkah.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2010/02/oliver-peel-session-16.html http://www.smudie.com/2010/02/oliver-peel-session-16.html rivkah smudie concerts oliver peel rivkah splitting the atom Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:55:45 +0100 Merry Christmas, and all that The Hogmanay Children has been released on the compilation album Chantons Noël avec Olga Records.

Admittedly, Like Every Christmas Eve may not be the happiest Christmas ditty you've ever heard, but with its mix of Japanese karaoke-style vocals in the first verse, a drunken church organ all the way through and some harmonies at the end that the Beach Boys would have died for, it still manages to be uplifting despite the somewhat morose subject matter.

Merry Christmas, and all that.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/12/merry-christmas-and-all-that.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/12/merry-christmas-and-all-that.html hogmanaychildren smudie hogmanay children like every christmas eve lyrics song Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:32:44 +0100 A beast in every song General Bye Bye asked me to start working with him a few weeks ago, he was happy to give me carte blanche to write about whatever I liked. However, he did have one specific instruction, which was to try to include a reference to an animal wherever possible. This is sort of the band's signature, it seems - a beast in every song.

Well, we've been working on a few tracks together, and so far I've managed to satisfy Philippe's request in at least one - Give It All Away - by slipping a few geese in there. I'm looking forward to hearing the sound of their beating wings in concert soon.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/11/a-beast-in-every-song.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/11/a-beast-in-every-song.html generalbyebye smudie general bye bye give it all away lyrics smudie song Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:29:48 +0100 A Recouvrance Recouvrance. He had his cheek pressed firmly against the window and his gaze was lost somewhere in the middle distance, fixed on nowhere in particular (which is where I suspect he felt his life was heading) as the washing machines spun through their endless cycle behind him.

Inspired by this curious scene, I went on to write a song called Shipwrecked, which I then gave to someone I recently began supplying with lyrics in the hope she could do something with them. I'd been listening to a lot of Dominique A at the time, and it turns out she's quite a fan too.

Needless to say, my song is not about this man, or at least not only about him. Seeing him was just the spark, and the rest came the way it always does... inexplicably.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/10/a-recouvrance.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/10/a-recouvrance.html smudie shipwrecked smudie song Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:55:24 +0100 An actor's face
Rivkah has already sung some lyrics of mine, performing with eliotE & the ritournelles on the lullaby Wheel of Dreams, and just yesterday she informed me that she has now managed to bash out a melody on her toy piano for a new song I wrote specifically for her a couple of months ago.

This is a new way of working for Rivkah, who is more used to writing her own lyrics (and only after coming up with the music first), so I'm honoured that she liked the words I offered her enough to try and make something out of them.

I haven't even heard the result yet, but I know I'll love it - I love everything about her swirling sound - and I'm too excited to keep the news to myself.

The song is called Splitting The Atom.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/09/an-actors-face.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/09/an-actors-face.html rivkah rivkah smudie song splitting the atom Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:29:23 +0100 Greedy Pigs ]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/07/greedy-pigs.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/07/greedy-pigs.html eliotE concerts eliotE greedy pigs song video Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:24:07 +0100 Lasse Vegas NADJ has just released a new album, Lasse Vegas, featuring three tracks with my lyrics: the raunchy opener Pick A Card; the languorous eight-minute epic Cactus; and, my personal favourite, Jesus Freak.

As Nadj herself explains on her blog on MySpace, this album has been a long time coming, and has not been without its troubles along the way.

Still, I firmly believe that some things are worth shouting from the rooftops. If there are only a handful of people listening down below, that doesn't mean you should use it as an excuse to say silent, or that you should wait for a bigger crowd to gather. No, sometimes you just need to scream as loud as you can... and see how far your voice will carry.

*

Buy Lasse Vegas here or direct from the artist.


]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/06/lasse-vegas.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/06/lasse-vegas.html nadj album lasse vegas lyrics nadj smudie songs Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:22:24 +0100 Never say never again Pourpre, the side project of Thomas Charlet from eliotE & the ritournelles, has recorded a version of my song Never.

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/06/never-say-never-again.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/06/never-say-never-again.html eliotE pourpre smudie eliote lyrics never pourpre smudie song Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:52:26 +0100 Songs for Manchester manchester.jg

Manchester: "Sans puissance, le son n'est rien"

Manchester are a band who wear many of their influences on their sleeve - or, rather, in their name.

There's also very much of a Mancunian swagger in the voice of lead singer and guitarist Leslie Kervella, who I first met when she was pushing her way to the front of a VERY long queue for the toilets in the Pop In and proclaiming loudly, "Let me through, let me through - I'm pregnant!"

Now that she's given birth and found time for making music again, the first results of our labours are ready to see the light of day. Smoke Signals is about taking the not-too-subtle hint that it's time to move on, while Grip compares the act of making love to nothing less than climbing a mountain.

Rock on!

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/03/songs-for-manchester.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/03/songs-for-manchester.html manchester smudie grip lyrics manchester smoke signals smudie Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:52:14 +0100 (Not just) for the kids Have A Good Night 4, released today, is a collection of "lullabies" performed by such rising stars of the French indie scene as Mina Tindle (who will be supporting Beirut on their upcoming European tour), MiLK and Fruit Juice, and eliotE & the Ritournelles (who have teamed up with Rivkah on Wheel of Dreams, a charming little ditty for which I wrote the lyrics), together with a few international guests.

The idea for our song came from eliotE herself, who told me about a dream she often had as a child in which she could "choose" what to dream about using a kind of magic roulette wheel. When she came to me with the idea they already had a vocal melody, which she described as being "a bit like the Andrews sisters", and I tried my best to respect that as I came up with the words.

I got a sneak preview of some of the album's contents a couple of weeks ago when I attended a special kids-only concert held at a playgroup in Montmartre, Paris - hardly the most rock n' roll of venues, I admit, but my daughter and her friend loved it!

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/03/not-just-for-the-kids.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/03/not-just-for-the-kids.html eliotE smudie eliote lyrics rivkah smudie song wheel of dreams Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:55:57 +0100 Out with the old and in with the new
That's what I told OrangeColumbo, who recently suffered a hard-drive failure on his PC that meant he has lost several months worth of work, including his initial demos of some songs that we'd been working on together, and a hundreds of personal photos, and who knows what else.

I didn't really know what else to say, and I still don't - other than the fact that, since I learned the news a couple of days ago, I've been rediscovering many of the tracks we've written together over the years.

Old songs like Carousel. Great songs like Carousel.

We'll be back, my friend!

]]> http://www.smudie.com/2009/03/out-with-the-old-and-in-with-t.html http://www.smudie.com/2009/03/out-with-the-old-and-in-with-t.html orangecolumbo smudie carousel lyrics orangecolumbo smudie song Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:53:52 +0100