Songwriters’ Secrets With Liz Stringer

1.The First Song I Wrote

Apparently I used to make songs up while my dad played the guitar when I was tiny. My greatest hit was something about ‘The Cat and The Fiddle’, I believe.

2.The Last Song I Released

I released a live clip from my latest release, Live At The Yarra, for a song called ‘Children’ that I also recorded for my third studio album Tides Of Time, released in 2010. The song was inspired by realising how little I (still) know as I get older. It’s the idea that we’re all still children trying to find our way, regardless of how old or experienced we are.

3.Songwriting Secrets

I’m a chords/music first kind of gal, usually, with the exception of a handful of songs that I’ve written from poems or already penned lyrics. The songs usually come while I’m playing guitar and the process following the initial idea can be delightfully quick or painfully slow, requiring more drafting.

4.The Song That MakesMe Proud

I think ‘hit’ may be a stretch but a consistent crowd favourite is a song called ‘High Open Hills’, a live solo version of which is also on Live At The Yarra. The story follows a young woman who falls in love with a man who has been moving around all of his life and who struggles to settle down, which makes things particularly hard after they have a child together. It’s a sad song and covers a large geographical distance in Australia. I’ve spent a lot of time touring around the country and this song is the combination of a few stories I’ve been told after spending time in various places, particularly in the Top End of Australia. People seem to connect with the song in different ways but I find that for parents, particularly new parents, it tends to tug at the heartstrings.

5.The Song That ChangedMy Life

I listened to Woodface by Crowded House quite a lot in my early teens. We didn’t have heaps of current music in the house but my brother bought the album and I listened to it obsessively. There’s a few songs on that record that informed me as a songwriter but ‘How Will You Go’ I found particularly beautiful. The Finns write with deep musicality and poetic sensibility and it offered me escape and refuge from the realities of life at the time, which is the powerful thing about music. I still love Crowded House. And Neil Finn is an absolute top-shelf writer and musician.

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