Lily Amis – “80 Million People!” / “The Stolen Years” Feat. Thir13een

Lily Amis – “80 Million People!” / “The Stolen Years” Feat. Thir13een – Singles Review

Well…I can tell ya this much – Lily Amis certainly seems genuine in all of what she does, which is good.

I had my spin through her single “80 Million People!” and started to think my thoughts, formulate what I was going to say & whatnot, just like I always do.  Most of the time I’m writing about anyone’s music, I have a listen to everything that I’ll be commenting on in advance of course, which led me to “The Stolen Years” – and that was the single that sent me down a whole different rabbit hole.  You see folks, I’m IN promotions…so I get extremely cautious when I see things like a song titled the same as an author’s book – make sense?  I start to wonder about whether or not each element, the book and the song, could fully stand on their own without the other for context, or if I was simply part of someone’s promotional material.  I started reading interviews with Lily to get a better sense of what she’s been doing with her life – it’s quite a leap to go from being an author into the music realm; I was interested in her journey.

Ultimately, I felt like this quote I found summed up a lot of what she wants to communicate to the world perfectly:  “Love, acceptance, tolerance, compassion, and kindness are the only way to find peace and harmony!  HumanityB4Nationality is my motto!”As many of you regular readers know from checking out articles here in the past, I’ve written about how I don’t have a nationalistic bone in my body many times before – so I instantly felt a type of kinship with Lily and her motto…and clearly, I completely agree with the sentiment of her message.  I’m also a writer – it’s my job to notice the little things – seeing a couple of exclamation points in back-to-back sentences usually tells me that someone’s excited and sincerely passionate about what they’re saying to us…I felt like this also applied to Lily Amis for certain.  Go back and read that quote again now.  To me, she’s got every reason to be using those exclamation points – the entirety of her message IS something to be excited and passionate about – and it’s inspiring.

All-in-all, she’s leading an extraordinarily altruistic life, and I completely admire & respect her for that.

We all evolve, and we all get better in what we do when we’re dedicated to whatever that may be for each of us as individuals – and I highly suspect the same is true for the songwriting of Lily Amis.  After having a listen to the songs, I can say for a fact that the least surprising detail I found in her interview with Planet Singer, was this tidbit of information she shared:  “I have a topic, I choose the song title, I design the song cover, and then the lyrics start to flow.”  I’ve run into many lyricists throughout my years of reviewing music of all kinds – there’s a straight-up different rhythm and pulse to what they do – and during my very first spin of her single “80 Million People!,” I knew that’s exactly what I was dealing with.  There’s an art to being a lyricist – and there’s an art to being an artist – and believe or not, they’re quite different.  When I was listening to the insightful wisdom of the words on “80 Million People!” I was both absorbing the information being provided and also marveling at the fact that, Lily created a monumental challenge for singer/producer Thir13een to take on – singing words like these, written how they are, is by no means any kind of easy task.  Some things adhere to a rhyme scheme, some things don’t, some lines have more syllables than others…basically, lyricists differ from artists in the sense that they’re primarily writers, and don’t really realize just how much of a challenge it can be to sing someone’s words when they’re not written from a singer’s point of view – you following me?  The message is the singular priority…what’s being sung is what matters – and my recommendation is always the same in this regard…work with those singers & talents, and compromise…because it’s crucial.  Not everything needs to rhyme – but for a message in music to resonate as powerfully as a song should, accessibility is the key element to making that happen.  Fluidity and smoothness is incredibly important – nearly as important as the message itself when in the musical realm – and that’s where I always recommend lyricists really work with their singers to see if there might be a different way to word the same message in a way that’ll translate to a song better.  Take this verse of “80 Million People!” for example:  “The horrible side effects of this pandemic / is nothing in comparison to surviving in refugee camps / 80 million people are struggling to survive, to stay alive / unhygienic and unsanitary conditions is all they know / while the majority of us is worrying about toilet papers, disinfection soaps…”  I’m not gonna lie to ya – I listened to that verse come out, and practically praised the skills of Thir13een out loud.  Most singers would have run away screaming from such a challenging part…yet here we are, and to be fair, I felt like he really pulled off a massive challenge in singing these words and keeping Lily’s message entirely intact.  Do I think there’s still a further compromise in there somewhere that could potentially exist, that gets out her message, while giving Thir13een more of an opportunity to shine at what he does & how he would sing a song like this?  Absolutely.  Like I said, it’s important to really work things out between a lyricist & an artist, do rewrites even if it’s necessary, and understand that both sides are approaching the same task with different priorities in mind.  To a lyricist, it’s always going to be the words – to an artist, it’s always going to be the performance – and finding the middle ground in the land between is the key to making things as accessible as possible, without losing sight of the message intended to be shared.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the words & sentiment that Lily has written into “80 Million People!” and I also love the way that Thir13een has chosen to sing it…all I’m saying is there’s further opportunity for them to meet in the middle.  The best way I can prove that to you, is for you to have a listen for yourself – and once you do, see what it is you remember after a couple spins.  Do you remember the verses word for word, or do you simply remember the main hook of “now you know how it feels like to be powerless / now you know how it feels like to be helpless?”  I highly suspect it’s just the latter part…the chorus hooks – and the reason why, is completely because of accessibility, fluidity, and how we listen to music.  The message is great, like I said, don’t get it twisted & don’t get me wrong – it’s the ENTIRE reason this song even exists to begin with…but the more you focus on the accessibility factor, the more memorable the message becomes in the minds of the people listening too.  Ultimately though, I like what I’m hearing more than enough…it’s a dose of effectively insightful poetry with perspective and a real point of view I can definitely sympathize with, and I’m sure many of you out there listening with open hearts will feel the same.  “80 Million People!” speaks volumes on behalf of what Lily is bringing awareness to; and for as jagged as the material can seem at times, I honestly do think the resulting amount of fluidity is actually nothing short of remarkable and a real achievement – it’s a testament to Thir13een’s talents.

“The Stolen Years,” is based on Lily’s book titled The Stolen Years In Zurich – and chances are, if we’ve read the book, we’ll all get that much more out of listening to the song.  As it stands, I don’t know that as a song it interests me quite as much as what I found in “80 Million People!” – but it does serve as the foundation for really understanding the experiences Lily has had in her life that fuel her mission & work to this very day as well, which is important.  Lines like “I wish I could turn back the time, rewrite the chapters” are highly effective and relatable for many of us…chances are, the majority of us all feel that moment in “The Stolen Years” connect, because many of us would choose to do the same if we could.  I also like the message in the hook, which as far as I understand it, is really about owning your story and living your life the way that YOU want to live it, without tainting it via someone else’s opinions or values, and having your own narrative ‘ghost-written’ by anyone.  Again, I could agree more – I’m all about celebrating our uniqueness, and I firmly believe that each and every one of us has our own story to tell, best told from our own perspective.  Ultimately, I do hear some of the same struggle in between the message & the music as I heard on “80 Million People!” beforehand…which is once again, the result of how being a writer, and writing for music, are completely different things.  Should Lily be discouraged by any of these observations?  Heck no – she should be ENCOURAGED to continue to evolve in another realm of her art, and inspired that there’s plenty of room for it continue to thrive, blossom, and grow!  Let’s be real here – Lily is only three songs into her career as a songwriter, with another single out there called “Blood Is Always Red!” currently released as well…there SHOULD be tons of room for evolution in anyone’s art or music at such an early stage – right now, it’s the ideas that matter most, and she has plenty of those to work with & the right talent in Thir13een to help her bring them to life as best as can be done.  Plus, when it comes to “The Stolen Years,” according to the interview I was reading, she “fulfilled my childhood dream and sang little parts in the chorus” too – and how awesome is THAT?  Any lyricist will tell you that deep down, they dream about being able to do what singers & musicians can do – so truly, I salute her for getting a part of her own into “The Stolen Years” & contributing what she can.  Really, it’s important for the context in this particular scenario and makes it that much more meaningful – The Stolen Years In Zurich is a memoir of her own, so you bet – having Lily’s own voice on the song that supports it, is really uniquely essential to tying everything together for us in the total experience overall.  While it’s driven by an upbeat vibe, “The Stolen Years” is about “appreciating every single day, even the difficult ones” – and I highly recommended paying close attention to the wisdom in Lily’s words.  She’s got a very insightful way of writing and sincere way of communicating her thoughts, and perhaps best of all, she’s doing what she can to pass her experience & wisdom onto YOU, for all the right reasons.

Find out more about Lily Amis right here:  http://www.nassima-design.com/books/lilyamis.html

Find out what we do at sleepingbagstudios, and be the next to be featured on our pages by clicking here!