Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Crazy : Songwriting With NV

I'm starting a small series for my next few post called "Songwriting with NV" (get it, NV = envy). I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a little of what most people want me to do anyway as a songwriter and explain a few of the songs I've written. Now, don't worry, I'll do that...at least a bit - I can't give away all my secrets, you know. Some of it's still for me. ;)

Photo by Don Razniewski

So, below is my song "Crazy", and it is also on my EP Sounds...which you can purchase on iTunes here (shameless plug!). So, confession: I LOVE playing this song! (yeah, I know - it sounds kind of self-aggrandizing, but it's true!) It's such a departure from my more serious explorations of the tougher situations we find ourselves in: it's fun, it's upbeat, it's danceable, it's sexy, it's about admiring the one you love, and it's that other side of me that I think the people who know me get to see the most. I tend to save that more melancholy, introspective side of my personality for myself - not on purpose: it's just the way I am. 
 
Anyway, I remember when I wrote this song how good it felt. It was actually one of the first songs I'd ever written, and it was at a time when I had just stopped seeing this very awesome, beautiful girl...and yes, I said girl. My, oh my, have the times changed! ;) She was smart, charismatic, fun, jovial, hot...yes, hot, and just an all-around awesome girl. I had made the decision I was going to pursue a music career, and I had just started trying to figure out how I was gonna get started, since I honestly knew nothing about the music business (truth be told...I still don't. It's an ever changing headache of a beast!) I was sitting around one day, and I was just thinking about how awesome this girl was and how I was so glad that, for whatever happened between us, I was able to have been a part of her life. 

Now, I know you're thinking: why did the word "Crazy" come to be the title of the song if this girl was so awesome. Short answer: I love juxtaposition. 
 
Well, I was playing around on my keyboard (that I still have and use to write songs...thanks to my awesome friend JBR) and this very rhythmic comping feel came to me, and it felt like a smoky jazz club in Paris in the 1940s, St. Germain, with well mixed drinks clanking in the background. If I ever re-record this song, it WILL have horns dammit! So, I got this rhythm going and then these words started flowing: "Woman your hips, and your lips, and your kiss on my cheek, makes my body so weak, that I can't seem to think, about anything else". I wanted to interplay the physical beauty with her inner beauty in the second verse: "You pique my curiosity, and you challenge me, with your brain, I refrain, from those games that those other guys try, but still I have to say..." So, as I kept playing and thinking about this girl, and more broadly, about how overwhelmingly cool it is to be smitten, the more kept coming. It was the first time I realized, "I'm turning ideas into songs. I'm a songwriter. This is CRAZY!" So, between putting out those feelings and being proud of my success at writing what I felt to be a good song made it simple: this song had to be called "Crazy". Pretty crazy huh?

So, tell me. Do you have anyone in your life that you love that's, for good or bad, got you goin' "Crazy"? Leave a message or post your thoughts on twitter @normanvladimir. Thanks for listening. 
 
 "Crazy" by Norman Vladimir on Sounds

Much love,
NV

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