It ends where it began
Gyan wraps up this year’s Australian tour at Byron Theatre on 17 September, celebrating This Girl’s In Love, her latest successfully crowdfunded album produced locally at Museagency studios. Join Gyan and Simon Greaves when they present some of the most beautiful love songs ever written.
What is the essence of a great love song?
Joni says songs are like tattoos. When a song connects to a place in me that leaves me speechless, it speaks for me, it feels for me. The songwriter has the ability to talk the language that perhaps, in that moment, I can’t and everything stops. I couldn’t express it better myself. A great song makes it onto your playlist and leaves you with an ear tattoo forever.
What are the love songs that stop you in your tracks?
Nelson Riddle’s opening string lines to When Your Lover Has Gone sung by Frank Sinatra is such a masterful setting that you cant help be lured into it’s grip then collapse in its beauty. Frank was in tears as his lover had just left him in real life. I can’t go past Mancini/Mercer’s Moon River for its pure simplicity and sublime lyrical match to melody… and it’s divine to mouth as a singer.
How did you choose the songs that made the album/show?
My love of songs is infinite; it’s to the moon and back. I put a frame on it, because freedom’s too big and I said, ‘Okay I’m gonna do love songs,’ and I went on a search for love songs, only love songs. No ‘you done me wrong’ or political. Most I have a strong history with and two were total newcomers: Neil Young’s Tumbleweed and Johnny Guitar by Peggy Lee a fluke discovery.
What is it like stepping into someone else’s song? Where does it take you… and the listener?
Well… it’s quite an uncharted sea so you’re feeling the unknown and that’s exciting. I feel like an actor stepping into roles and I love the challenge of slipping into someone else’s jacket. Sometimes onstage I sense the other 300 artists who have covered this song and they’re standing right behind me – Roberta, Ewan, Lennon, Peggy, Kate – then it’s my turn to step up to the plate and hope I cut it.
How do you make the song new without losing its integrity, or does that not matter?
I’ve obviously chosen the song for a reason (above), then I want to investigate why it’s been written, who’s written it, for whom, what movie? I try to get into the time and place to re-live the author’s intention and if I pull it off and make somebody forget the past, be in the moment with me, then great. Bob Dylan’s latest Shadows in the Night, a cover album of Frank Sinatra’s classics, was on our turntable for months and this only added to his integrity.
Tell me where you’ve been with this tour so far.
Concert halls, boho loungerooms and rock joints on the eastern seaboard.
What’s your advice for artists braving the big wide road?
Get a van and a sense of humour, be kind to your friends with a spare room, find comrades, and wear a helmet.
The songs you have chosen are beautiful. Do you think there is a place for beautiful things on the pub circuit?
Nuh.
Tell me about the live show and what to expect at the Byron Community Theatre.
We’ve always seeded our shows in the Byron Theatre and love playing to our home crowd but this is a first for a finale. We’ve returned as a pretty oiled machine and we’ll take advantage of this excellent venue to be a little more experimental visually and sonically, planting a few seeds for the next chapter.
Saturday 17 September at the Byron Community Centre. Tix at byroncentre.com.au.
