Q: Welcome back! Are you ready for the latest question?
A: Hopefully what I am doing will help me give a meaningful answer.
Q: Alright, it’s useless pushing you if you don’t want to.
A: It’s not that I evade your question but I think there are better ways than words.
Q: Mhm… Let me jump into a random answer of yours and catch a random word. Boom! “Songwriter”. How many songs have you written?
A: Nearly fifty. But did I really answer with that word before? Which question was it?
Q: Just kidding. That topic is interesting and I intentionally randomised. What are they about?
A: Love. They must be about love. I love to love and to be loved.
Q: Nice, good luck! What genre do you usually write?
A: Pop, rock, blues, country, waltz, tango, swing… and something that I don’t know how to call because I don’t have a basic knowledge of music.
Q: Then why do you know to distinguish the genres that you’ve just listed?
A: Deduction, maybe.
Q: Who influenced you?
A: At first I didn’t pay attention; recently, I recognised that some of them were influenced by The Beatles and Nirvana, for the rest I’m not sure.
Q: Do you sing your songs?
A: I can only sing around one third of them; the other ones are so difficult that can only live in my head.
Q: When did you discover this ability?
A: Don’t expect to hear a traditionally thrilling story like “I was born in a famous artistic family, my parents have inspired me by their precious artworks…” or “I was born in a difficult condition of life but the passion for music has burned me so intensely that I become a bonfire and every spark from it turned into a music note…” No, if you are a romanticism admirer, you’d better be temporarily ignorant: once in my adolescence, when I was reading a poem (oh my gosh, apart from the ones in didactic books that I had to learn reluctantly, I rarely read poetry because I didn’t have sympathy for it), some music notes appeared. I was a bit surprised then I told myself: “Forget about this bullshit. That boring kind!” Some years later, at the age of 18, when passing through a lakeside road by bicycle in the last autumn rain from a boyfriend’s house, I composed the first verse of Starry night. To be honest, it had been dedicated to another (imaginative) person but when writing the refrain I only thought of Van Gogh, then I changed the first verse’s lyrics and completed that song very quickly.
Q: Oh, I don’t have to pretend to be ignorant because I actually am, however it’s still more humdrum than I thought. Everyone is ignorant, the matter is whether we recognize it, how we treat it, how can we live in peace with it… Anyway, “boyfriend” sounds great. On which part does the accent fall, “boy” or “friend”?
A: Ahaha, damn your snoop! Like all the exemplary ladies, you only want to swim in that billabong. “Friend”, and as you heard, I use “a boyfriend” instead of “the boyfriend” or “my boyfriend”. We have never touched each other even at a finger-finger level in our mind. But I have to unveil that he’s the cutest boyfriend ever and he always stays the same until now, as a father of two children.
Q: Why is he special to you?
A: We shared our music passion and moments in high school: one earphone, several CDs, many “confidential stories” about girls and boys we liked (plural form, of course).
Q: Have you shared “secrets” with him recently?
A: No, for several reasons. We’re grown up, we’re living far from each other, we have our own lives,… and actually I have shared all my secrets to those who care through the media.
Q: Who, in detail?
A: Who knows.
Q: Do you have any tricks for writing songs?
A: I don’t think I have any. I haven’t practiced it seriously, all I’ve obtained is a result of innate ability + intuition + admiration + passion + inspiration + spontaneous emotions + logical mind and quite importantly, my uncompromising attitude towards easiness.
Q: “Easiness”. What do you mean?
A: Well… actually I’m not a difficult person, I only have some different thoughts in comparison with the masses. For example, people hoot the horn on the road continuously while I’m the only one to do it when someone throws rubbish from the bridge into the river, I don’t entertain myself with infinite disjointed stories about the disappointment to X, annoyance at Y, tiredness with Z… In some cases the easy one is undoubtedly me: I’ve been in places where my gentleness surprises, my calm provokes and I really don’t know what people can do to make me angry. Maybe I ruin myself with love but I don’t do it in an ordinary relationship; I smile to refresh my facial muscles, I talk softly to keep my throat comfortable, I forget what they say to reserve more space in my heart and my mind for beautiful things and so on.
Q: So you must hate and be hated by many people?
A: Totally wrong. I don’t hate anyone. Just understand simply, if I nourish hatred inside, I would only give my own head misery and could not write any song like this:
“Don’t drown yourself in depression that turns your eyes blurred and you’ll view life as a sea of agony, you’ll see people’s soul shallowly, you’ll doubt and deceive yourself
Live serenely and your sincerity will open as an epiphyllum bud in the moonlight, will shine modestly but immensely as summer sky”
(Live our life)
Believe it or not, when you write a song with your mind but without your heart, it would become a bowl of instant noodle that satisfies the stomach in two hours and will be forgotten very quickly. I don’t know if I’m hated, what I generally do is to create a warm atmosphere, those who hate me bring disturbance to themselves.
Q: Nevertheless, you must have negative sentiment regarding something sometimes, I guess.
A: Right. I’m not a stone, people aren’t gods and vice versa. I repeat: I don’t hate anyone because virtue and defects always live together inside of each individual (don’t try to interrupt me, I did explain my point of view about perspective in the first part). Compatibility is the key. When I love, I love all the defects; in case an incompatibility occurs, I talk straightforwardly. Problem is when I tell the truth they think I’m joking, when I joke they think I’m stupid, when I’m really stupid they believe. Trouble is we don’t give in each other.
Q: If you love, you feel free to forgive unconditionally.
A: Why do I have to forgive when no mistake was made?
Q: So what is the point?
A: Or they don’t understand me enough, or they slight me. Whichever it is, if they don’t even give you a sand never expect them for a pebble.
Q: Do as you said in your song: “Live serenely”!
A: Are all my previous words just like water off a duck’s back? “Allergy” is not a dangerous sickness that needs to be cured as soon as possible and I haven’t found suitable medicine, that’s all. “Incompatibility” is a little bit more complicated; just imagine that you have to build up something from an absurd couple of components, like straw and glass: if you’re clumsy you won’t be able to form anything, if you’re talented you will be able to make an amazing architecture admired by millions of people. “Opposite sentiments” is similar but let me tell you this: once my classmates called me to join them in a party. Party with dog meat. I stayed with them, talked, laughed and drank with them but only ate rice cake. This fact can’t be a reason to break our friendship, we only need to avoid that situation from the next time. I like many animals, I can eat popular ones like pork, chicken, beef… but no one can constrain or persuade me to eat dog, cat or bird meat because besides some similarities they have different spiritual values.
Q: Why don’t you turn my questions into bold like all the articles in the world?
A: Couldn’t you decode my opinions or have your ideas bankrupted? Anyway, it’s a monologue and we are one. One minute to brainstorm!
Q: … Here it is!
A: What?
Q: Thanks for two seconds more with your “What?”. Italian. Let’s talk about your Italian.
A: Unfortunately these two seconds took my inspiration away. See ya!
Q: Oops…
A: Ahaha!