Let's Get Lyrical Hits a High Note

Posted: Tuesday 1 February 2011

Let’s Get Lyrical is a month-long celebration of the song lyrics.

Let's Get Lyrical, the month-long celebration of song lyrics, yesterday completed its packed
programme of live, lyric-inspired events. February 2011 saw 86 special lyrics-based events
across two cities, involving 69 partner organisations.

The campaign’s been a success – simply the best! – with 100s of stories submitted and Dylan topping the list for most popular lyricists. A big thank you to all our partner organisations and the funders who made it all possible’ – Ali Bowden, Director, City of Literature.

The one-off February festival, created and run by Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature in partnership with Glasgow UNESCO City of Music, marked the launch of the Let’s Get Lyrical website – www.letsgetlyrical.com - where people have been sharing their stories about lyrics they love, including some fine writers, musicians and songwriters:

Morrissey raised the song-writing bar so high that for a quarter century now few have been
able to match him, even with a plagiarist’s pole vault. The Smiths album ‘The Queen Is Dead’
contains some of his finest wordplay. Kenny Anderson (King Creosote)

I think my dad’s ‘Big River’ is one of the most eloquent pieces of American poetry ever
written. It inspires me he had such an intuitive and refined sense of narrative and language,
that he created a cinematic landscape. Roseanne Cash

My ultimate lyric...comes from Clive James, when he was first collaborating with Pete Atkin.
It’s from a song called ‘Screen Freak’, about somebody obsessed with movies. He writes
about seeing Atlantis, Atlanta up in flames and plywood cities meeting their doom. Perfection.
Iain Banks

I love the lyrics to ‘Kung Fu Fighting’. I think a lot of the success of the song lies on that one
line: “In fact it was a little bit frightening.” It’s funny, colloquial and a great example of a
lyrical hook. Aidan Moffat

Letsgetlyrical.com has become the place for people to talk about song lyrics and is full of
audio interviews, podcasts, recommended reads, features and a rich array of stories about
the lyrics and songwriters people love. Song lyric stories continue to roll in, and during the
month of February there were over 30,000 visits and 134,000 page views on the site, with
more than 1500 Twitter followers and many more people contributing via the #GetLyrical
hashtag.

One aspiring songwriter, Tom McEwan, has won the Let's Get Lyrical competition and the
opportunity to get his lyric jammed in private with Glasgow indie sensation band Zoey Van
Goey, which have just launched their second album, Propellers versus Wings, to critical
acclaim.

Add your voice to the Let’s Get Lyrical mix – share the story about the lyrics you love, and
become a part of this growing online community. Celebrity contributions so far include:
Stuart Braithwaite - Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying’
Alan Bissett - Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’
Ziggy Campbell - Trashcan Sinatras’ ‘I’ll Get Them In’
Phil Cunningham - Silly Wizard’s ‘Lover’s Heart’
Rosanne Cash - Johnny Cash’s ‘Big River’
Sir Sandy Crombie - Bob Dylan’s ‘Positively 4th Street’
Justin Currie - Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’
Lloyd Cole - Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’
Robert Douglas - Bing Crosby’s ‘Buddy, Can You Spare Me A Dime?’
Stephane Denevev - Claude Nougaro’s ‘Cecile, Ma Fille’
Andrew Dixon - Elton John’s ‘Your Song’
Barbara Dickson - Ewan MacColl’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’
Geoff Ellis - The Jam’s ‘That’s Entertainment’
Julie Fowlis - ‘Moladh Uibhist’ by Roderick MacKay
Anouchka Grose - OMD’s ‘Talking Loud And Clear’
David Greig - Jonathan Richman’s ‘That Summer Feeling’
Jim Gellatly - The Proclaimers’ ‘Cap In Hand’
Vic Galloway - Sex Pistols’ ‘Bodies’
Janice Galloway - Lou Reed’s Perfect Day
Robin Harper - Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’
Fiona Hyslop - Robert Burns’ ‘Ae Fond Kiss’
Cathy Jamieson - Billy Bragg’s ‘Between The Wars’
A.L. Kennedy - Elvis Costello’s ‘This Is Hell’
Irma Kurtz - George Gershwin’s ‘The Man I Love’
Billy Liar - Arab Strap’s ‘The First Big Weekend’
Jed Milroy - Percy Sledge’s ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’
Imelda May - The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’
Frank McAveety - Tim Buckley’s ‘Once I Was’
Margo MacDonald - Willie Nelson’s ‘Always On My Mind’
Robyn Marsack - Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart’s ‘My Funny Valentine’
Susie Maguire - Bowie’s ‘Wild Is The Wind’
Ken MacLeod - The Pogues and Cait O’Riordan’s ‘I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day’
Eddie Mair - Barry Manilow’s ‘When October Goes’
Aidan Moffat - Carl Douglas’s ‘Kung Fu Fighting’
Damian O’Neill’s Story: The Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save The Queen’
Craig Potter - Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’
James Robertson - Michael Marra’s ‘Happed In Mist’
Eddi Reader - Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’
Ian Rankin - The Mutton Birds’ ‘The Falls’
Alex Salmond - Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Whatever’s Written In Your Heart’
Mike Scott - Dylan’s ‘It’s All Right Ma, I’m Only Bleeding’
Robert Twigger - Buggles’ ‘Astroboy’
Christos Tsiolkas - The Go-Betweens’ ‘Cattle And Cane’
Rick Wakeman - Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’
Pete Wishart Story - This Mortal Coil’s ‘Song To The Siren’
Irvine Welsh - ABC’s ‘That Was Then But This Is Now’
Roddy Woomble - Bob Dylan’s ‘I Threw It All Away’
Justin Webb - David Bowie’s ‘Five Years’
James Yorkston - Michael Hurley’s ‘Why Should I Have To Worry?’

Tags: City Centre, East End, Glasgow North, Let's Get Lyrical, Merchant City, South Side, UNESCO, West End