The first proper flat I had in London was in a part of London called Tooting Bec.
Tooting is not really at the heart of the city and its social scene is pretty dead! Living there was lonely. London can be a very lonely place when you don’t know many people and your just starting out.
I moved there right around the same time that I got my publishing deal as finally with a little money in my pocket I could afford a decent flat! This was still pre-basement days though! (that flat was a mile down the road in Tooting Broadway!)
Anyway, if you hadn’t already guessed, Lonely Girl is
about myself, I was the lonely girl…
I recall the
day I wrote it, I was sitting at the keyboard in our music room (which was
basically an extension of the kitchen) while my flat mate was cooking noodles in
the kitchen.
Quite often people ask me about how I write songs and the process behind it. But to be honest there are so many different ways in which a song can be pieced together its difficult to explain. But I can tell you this….the songs I write on the piano are usually much more intricate than the songs I write on the guitar. Im not sure why, perhaps its
because I’ve been a pianist since i was 4
and sometimes I’m the victim of “I’ll overplay because I can!!” But McCartney always said the hardest songs to write are the simplest songs and the best songs are
the simplest songs.
So I started the song with this Beatles esque piano intro
and that descending bass line then the melody just came to me. It was winter, very very cold outside, frosty and the nights were drawing
in very early, sometimes as early as 4.30pm so I felt like I was living in a
snow globe!
When its cold and windy outside theres nothing nicer than cuddling up to someone on the sofa in front of the fire so I guess I was just longing for that feeling. Staring out the window at the snow falling and the trees blowing in the gales I started to doodle. My doodle became a picture of a girl with long hair and a long coat on, with a river running around her and ribbons in her hair. I had been listening to “Ribbon In The Sky” by Stevie Wonder earlier that day! I basically drew the start of the song and I wrote the whole thing from top to bottom.
Alot of people start with the
chorus, they like to get the chorus lyric down first and then sculpt the verses
around the chorus but I have never been a fan of that. I like to tell stories that
have a beginning, a middle and an end.
Now here’s something that you may not all know!! Originally this song was much longer but when I signed to Sony and they wanted to use it as a radio single they did a radio edit and shaved a good 30 seconds off the song. The original lyric actually starts with “I sense something very familiar said the man next to me from nowhere, I have seen a girl like you before with ribbons in her hair. I sometimes see her down by the river, the water dances on her skin and she can captivate you with her eyes but she will never let you in’” BUT the radio edit starts with “I sometimes see her down by the river…….” and cut out the first two lines.
Every time I ever performed the radio edit version on TV or radio it felt so weird to start the song in the middle of the verse, to me it was like starting a book 50 pages in. It just didn’t make sense!!
So, anyway, theres a little factoid for you guys that you may find interesting. Really glad I shared this with you all and next year im adding Lonely Girl back into the set as its one of my favourite songs from Smile…
Big Love ST xx
PS I am not that girl anymore, I have
found the love of my life!!! But to all the lonely girls (and boys!) out
there…..this song is for you.
