Lenka a better songwriter when she’s down and out
Let other songwriters summon the muse when they’re beside themselves with joy. Lenka, the artist behind the hit song “The Show,” writes when she feels down and out.
“I write songs because I want to deal with my emotions, especially negative ones,” she describes the songwriter in her in a phone interview with this writer on “The Philippine Star” in 2009.
Sure beats any form of therapy, she tells you. Why go to a psychologist to vent, when you can always pour out your problems in a song?
That’s Lenka for you.
“It’s (songwriting) my way of coping with life,” she told this writer in the same interview. “It’s like writing a diary, like a psychology session.”
Helps others deal with issues
Once she’s over the hump, the Australian singer-songwriter wants to help other people deal with their own issues the best way she knows how: through song.
“I want to cheer people up through my songs,” she revealed.
So, she writes in “The Show,” the song that gave her fame and fortune and sent her touring the world: “I know I’ve got to let it go and just enjoy the show.”
“The Show” was #1 in Radio Vietnam. It became the soundtrack for an “Ugly Betty” promo. It was named iTunes Free Single of the Week.
The album with the song peaked at number 142 in U.S. Billboard. Even the critics were happy. They liked the song’s bubbly feel and lush instrumentation. It is light enough for feel-good listening. And it’s emo enough to make young people load it in their music players.
Not motivated by fame and fortune
But, Lenka admitted to this writer, “Fame and fortune are not the reasons why I write songs."
Still, the perks of success came naturally because the 33-year-old writes songs with universal appeal.
In “Roll With the Punches,” a track off her second album, “Two,” Lenka tells her fans: "When life tries to knock all the wind out of you/You've got to roll, roll, roll with the punches/ If all life offers is black and blue/You've got to roll, roll, roll with the punches."
By rolling with the punches, Lenka not only gets by. She comes up with songs that become modern-day anthems of survival.
Lenka will return to Manila for a show on Sunday, October 9, at the World Trade Center.
