Everyone doing the same thing , and whoever recited it best won .
I spent a lot of time submerged in this amazing poetry , and in a lot of ways that influenced not only the lyrics , but also the meter , the way that I write lyrics , and the way I like things to rhyme . I think it influenced the music because it honed me into a certain kind of melodic writing that would be the best conduit for that . Which I think does give my songs a little bit more of a hymnic or Irish-ry kind of feel because the lyrics are already telling the melody what it needs to be . Not to geek out , but we call that prosody in songwriting . That is something that I ’ ll always chase after , that the lyric and the melody are saying the same thing . We can probably all think of examples of songs where that doesn ’ t happen , where the melody sounds like it ’ s saying one thing , but the lyrics are saying something very different . I try my best to pull those two worlds together . But thank you , that was very kind .
[ WM ] The descriptive that comes to mind for your gift in lyric writing is wordsmith . You Ben , are a wordsmith . I interviewed Hannah Hobbs from Hillsong last month and she spoke of your poetic gifting on her collaboration with you called , “ God Song ”. Such a great song ! With your abilities to write on your own , are you selective in writing songs with others ?
[ Benjamin ] Oh wow , I love collaborating . Again , thank you . I have very few songs where I didn ’ t collaborate . Off the top of my head , I don ’ t know that I can think of one . I did have a song come out between albums called ‘ Dragons ’ that was just me , but generally I love collaborating . I know it sounds cliché , but we do better things when we work together .
There are times when songs need to just come straight from the heart , and there ’ s so many amazing examples of songs that come from one person , but I really enjoy working with other people and bouncing off them . Honestly just seeing their face when you throw out an idea because you know immediately whether it ’ s good or bad .
Otherwise , you could just sit at the piano for five hours trying to figure out whether it ’ s good or not . But when you ’ re with someone , their micro expressions tell you pretty quickly just how good or bad that idea is . So yeah , I love writing with others . As far as being selective , I think I ’ m more relationally driven , so I guess that ’ s a form of selectivity . But I really want to write with my friends and who I have good relationship with and have things in common with .
A lot of the writing that I ’ ve done , especially for
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