Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 318, Writing a Love Song.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 318.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our episode is called Writing a Love Song.
It's a dialogue between Isaac and Brittany.
And, well, you'll see, it's about someone writing a song of love.
Let's get started.
Can you keep it down in there?
I'm trying to write a song.
You are?
What kind of song?
It's none of your business.
Come on, tell me.
It's for Melanie.
Oh, it's a love song.
That's so romantic.
Are you going to serenade her?
Maybe.
Now leave me alone so I can write.
Don't kick me out.
Maybe I can help.
Let me hear what you have so far.
Oh, all right.
Here are the lyrics.
They're pretty rough.
Can you think of something that rhymes with flower?
Let me see.
They're not bad, not too sappy.
Let's hear the melody.
That's nice.
The chorus is catchy.
Are you going to sing it a cappella?
I was going to ask Jimmy to play the guitar to accompany me so I can make a recording of it.
Let me do it.
I can play the guitar.
No way.
You won't take it seriously.
I will, I promise.
I'll make little kissing noises in the background and it'll move her to tears.
Forget it.
What was I thinking telling you about it?
Our dialogue begins with Isaac saying to Brittany... can you keep it down in there?
The expression to keep it down means not to make a lot of noise, to be quiet.
This is something my mother would always say to us in our rooms at home.
She'd say, keep it down in there.
Stop making so much noise.
Well, She said that to my brothers and sisters because I never caused any problems when I was a child.
Isaac says to Brittany, And Brittany says, Isaac replies, That expression, it's none of your business, is an idiom that means it's not something that you should know about.
It's private.
It doesn't relate to you.
You don't need to know.
It's something of a negative expression when you say it's none of your business, because you are saying stop trying to find out what I am doing.
It's something you would say to a family member or a friend, not something you would say to your boss.
Brittany says, come on, tell me.
Come on, meaning go ahead, be nice to me, tell me what you're doing.
Isaac then says, it's for Melanie.
The song is for Melanie.
Brittany says oh, it's a love song, a romantic song, a song that a man would sing to a woman he was in love with.
Brittany says, that's so romantic.
Are you going to serenade her?
To serenade, S-E-R-E-N-A-D-E, someone, means to play, usually to sing, romantic music for someone.
The typical example would be a man standing below the window where a woman was in her house, or a girl, and the woman comes to the window and the man is down below and he sings this song and she falls in love and well, you know the rest of the story.
Isaac says maybe, meaning maybe i'll serenade her, perhaps Now leave me alone so I can write.
Brittany says, don't kick me out.
Don't get rid of me.
Don't tell me to leave.
Maybe I can help.
Let me hear what you have so far.
Let me hear the song that you've written so far up to this point.
Isaac says, oh, all right.
Okay.
Here are the lyrics.
The lyrics are the words that are sung in a song.
He says, the lyrics are pretty rough.
When we say something is rough, in this case, we mean it's not finished.
It's incomplete.
Rough has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Isaac then asks Brittany, Can you think of something that rhymes with flower?
To rhyme means to sound the same as another word, especially the vowels in another word.
Hat rhymes with cat and rat.
These are all rhymes.
So, in writing a song...
Many people look for words that rhyme at the end of a sentence in the song.
Britney says, hmm, let me see, let me think about it.
She's looking at the lyrics and she says, they're not bad, not too sappy.
When something is sappy, S-A-P-P-Y, it's sappy. too emotional.
It's almost a little silly.
Something as sappy as very emotional, very dramatic.
I went to see this romantic movie and it was sappy.
It was too emotional, too dramatic.
Brittany says to Isaac, let's hear the melody.
The melody is M-E-L-O-D-Y consists of the main notes in the song.
We would say the tune, T-U-N-E.
You're familiar with iTunes.
Well, tune is another word for a song.
The melody is the collection of notes that make up the song.
The melody is separate from the lyrics.
The lyrics are the words.
The melody is the music.
Brittany says the chorus is catchy.
Are you going to sing it a cappella?
The chorus of a song is the part of the song that is usually repeated several times in the song.
When something is catchy, C-A-T-C-H-Y, we mean it's easy to remember, something that is difficult to forget.
Sometimes this can be a bad thing, when you keep singing a song to yourself even though you don't like it, but the melody is so catchy, so memorable that that it is hard to forget it.
To sing a cappella is an Italian expression meaning to sing without instruments, to sing only with your voice no piano, no guitar, no other musical instruments.
In Italian, it actually means translates into in the chapel or in the church.
Church music was traditionally sung in many places just with voices.
Isaac says, I was going to ask Jimmy, his friend, to play the guitar to accompany me.
To accompany means to play a musical instrument while someone else is singing.
To accompany can also mean to go with someone.
I will accompany you to the store.
I will go with you.
But when we use it in talking about music, it means to play a musical instrument—a piano, a guitar— while someone else is singing.
Isaac says he wants to make a recording of the song.
A recording is an audio copy of something.
In this case, it could be on a CD, an MP3, or some other format.
You can also have video recordings of something.
Brittany says, let me do it.
I can play the guitar.
Isaac says, no way, meaning no, not at all.
I'm not going to do that.
Something of an informal expression, no way.
You won't take it seriously.
You won't be serious about it.
You'll treat it as a joke.
You won't take it seriously.
Britney says, I will, I promise.
I'll make little kissy noises in the background and it will move her to tears.
Britney is joking here.
Of course, to make little kissy noises in the song would make it very sappy.
To move someone to do something is to make someone feel very strong emotions.
We often use the expression when we talk about crying.
Tears are the drops of water that come out of your eyes when you're very sad, for example.
It moved me to tears.
It made me cry.
Isaac says, forget it.
What was I thinking telling you about it?
What was I thinking meaning I was stupid.
I should have known better.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Can you keep it down in there?
I'm trying to write a song.
You are?
What kind of song?
It's none of your business.
Come on, tell me.
It's for Melanie.
Ooh, it's a love song.
That's so romantic.
Are you going to serenade her?
Maybe.
Now leave me alone so I can write.
Don't kick me out.
Maybe I can help.
Let me hear what you have so far.
Oh, all right.
Here are the lyrics.
They're pretty rough.
Can you think of something that rhymes with flower?
Flower?
Hmm, let me see.
They're not bad.
Not too sappy.
Let's hear the melody.
That's nice.
The chorus is catchy.
Are you going to sing it a cappella?
I was going to ask Jimmy to play the guitar to accompany me so I can make a recording of it.
Let me do it.
I can play the guitar.
No way.
You won't take it seriously.
I will, I promise.
I'll make little kissing noises in the background, and I'll move her to tears.
Forget it.
What was I thinking telling you about it?
The script for this podcast was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
If you have a question or comment, you can email us.
Our email address is eslpod... at ESLPOD.com.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2007.
