14 January - Britney & Me

Clearly the best thing to do the night before getting up really early to catch a flight to India is to be in a recording studio. Not! A friend needed help with the cheesy lyrics of a song that had to be translated into one of the languages I speak. I did this easily, only no one had explained to me how metrics are important when it comes to songs. I thought we could just chop and change a few words and make them fit in with the line/melody but oh no... it has to be down to the right number of syllables. And no other european language is as concise as English. So it was that with mounting horror, myself and the gorgeous Luca who had been drafted in to sing the guide vocal to the tune I translated, saw our Friday night evaporate.

We valiantly tried till we had practically changed the song completely (it couldn't even be called Open Your Heart any more as the main chorus line was changed to 'Wherever you'll be' to make it fit in the other language). And we had a major laugh for 3 hours searching google for synonims and even trying to crib from song lyrics of other successful latin warblers, but then we had to give up. It needed hours of the same treatment, and then dropping every line into a computer programme that would smooth it all out. Actually the computer does half of this, the rest is Saint Sean the engineer. The only consolation was that I got a master lesson in recording from my friend (producer of top people like Hung Up Madge, B, the mad icelandic woman, and ta-ra'! miss trailer trash herself, Britney. The engineer said she sat on my stool when she was recording here last. Kevin was nowhere in sight but la Brit was preggers. Would be something if in a year's time I had a #1 of some kind (obviously not a record or a sporting achievement - must come up with something else), a profligate hubby I can keep throwing out of the house - but he loves me really - and a beautiful baby called Bradford or something. It's true as I had heard, that Britney does need help with a tune (nobody in her entourage had actually ever told her she can't sing that well) but apparently she does know how to come up with a melody and a song. Bless. Don't hav her albums but many a time have envied the dance routines. And the snakes round her neck.
I'll let you know when the tune reaches Enrique Iglesias' levels of success. Forgot to ask for a sleeve credit.