smudie

I don't think I'm going out on a limb in claiming that Philippe Beer-Gabel, the singer of General Bye Bye, is the only Frenchman to play Finnish national instrument the kantele in a rock band. Indeed, he may well be the only Frenchman to play one at all.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Philippe's new band Feather Feather perform at the recently-opened Fabrique des Balades Sonores. Alongside Philippe on kantele and vocals, the band also features Laura Jorgensen and Liz Tolan on alternate lead vocals, and Andrea Else on the violin. The combination of three quite different voices and all those strings makes for a truly beautiful sound, an example of which can be heard to great effect on the live recording of Rocketlauncher (which was sung by Laura Jorgensen) from yesterday's show.

It's always a delight hearing new voices breathe life into my lyrics, and Feather Feather performing Rocketlauncher was no exception.

• Rocketlauncher
  

I wrote the lyrics to Bruises a long time ago, and I wasn't sure that they were finished, but today I feel like sharing them anyway.

Sometimes it's better to half-say something that's on your mind than it is to remain silent.

• Bruises

It's been a while since I've put any new lyrics up here, but that doesn't mean I've stopped writing. I never stop writing.

Songs like My Tattoo.

• My Tattoo
  

Sometimes I write lyrics specifically for people who ask. In those cases, the music might already exist, or the singer might have an idea of what he or she wants the song to be about, and at the very least I have a particular style of music in mind. Emmylou is a good example of such a song - General Bye Bye's singer Philippe told me a story and together we turned it into a song.

Sometimes, however, I write simply because the lyrics need to be written. When that happens, it's up to me to find someone afterwards to sing the song. I think of them as songs in search of a singer, and I just put a whole bunch of new ones online, including An Open Relationship and Soles.

• Emmylou
• An Open Relationship
• Soles
  

Here's a video, featuring a heart-felt vocal performance by Philippe, of General Bye Bye performing the unreleased song Murder Of Crows during their Oliver Peel Session last weekend.

• Murder Of Crows

When General Bye Bye were collecting funds on KissKissBankBank to help finance their recent US tour, one of the prizes they offered to generous contributors was the chance to have the group write a song for you.

Gilles-Marie Zimmerman, a photographer from Paris, took them up on their offer - and yesterday he listened for the first time to the song they came up with based on my lyrics, Flirting With The Camera.

By all accounts, Gilles-Marie was very pleased with the result.

• Flirting With The Camera

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Follow General Bye Bye on their DIY tour of the United States, where they will be introducing unsuspecting American audiences to some of the new songs we've been writing together recently, including Physics and Maths.

• Physics and Maths

Last night I attended the launch party for Girouette, the eagerly-anticipated first album from General Bye Bye that was released this week on Greed Recordings.

The album was recorded before I started working with the band so doesn't feature any of my work. However, at yesterday's gig they did perform two new tracks for which I've written the lyrics, including Emmylou, which lead singer Philippe introduced as being "a story about a guinea pig I met in Texas, that Stuart Mudie turned into a song".

In fact, my lyrics were about a hamster, not a guinea pig, but it's still a great tune.

• Emmylou

• Honeycomb