An interesting feature in The New York Times Magazine is The Inspiration Issue, where do creative ideas start?
Alicia Keys was the protagonist of The Inspiration Issue back in September last year, and she talked about the creative process behind her latest work, Girl on Fire. Drop by The New York Times to read the full article and watch the accompanying video.
No activity today. Just enjoy the interview and the song.
I love this song ‘Girl on Fire’. They all mean something and all came from something, but ‘Girl on Fire’ is, is definitely ill. It came from this interview that I did. I was reading it and she said something like, ‘She’s like a girl on fire,’ and I was like ‘Huh, I love that!’
We were in the studio one day and I was working with Jeff Bhasker and Salaam Remi, I think, you know I’ve been wanting to write this song ‘Girl on Fire’, and what does girl on fire sound like? Somehow we start kinda tossing around these ideas and thoughts and these different sounds come out and these different things come out. Eventually we came to the chords that are ‘Girl on Fire’ and I guess you’d want me to play the chords, so the chords are like, you know, pretty you know, that ain’t the chord, there goes the chord.
She’s just a girl, and she’s on fire
So, anyway, that those are the chords right? It’s like a different kind of, a little bit twingy or type of sound…
Hotter than a fantasy,
There goes the damn chord again
lonely like a highway
We start going to roll these different crazy drums and then there was like this loud obnoxious just destructive drums, I was like yes the girl on fire is loud and obnoxious and destructive, and like free, you know what I mean it sounds like, and then we just went to the room. I just had a mike set up like over here, and it’s just flown, it’s like one of these crazy moments that everything’s just flown, which like sometimes happens, sometimes doesn’t happen. But this moment everything was just magic.
We sat down on the couch, we start writing some lyrics down like
She’s just a girl, and she’s on fire
Hotter than a fantasy, lonely like a highway
And we go in again, I just sing it again from top to bottom. I don’t know what happened but it was like an explosion of like magic fairy dust that came down and that’s basically what happens. Sometimes there’s a song but it’s just very rare.
I just remember being in the bathroom and I’m singing the song and I’m like ahhh and she’s just going around and around in my head. When I left the bathroom my husband called me and I was like yeahhhh and he asked ‘what’s up?’ I said ‘I think we just came up with something’.
She’s just a girl, and she’s on fire
Hotter than a fantasy, lonely like a highway
She’s living in a world, and it’s on fire
Feeling the catastrophe, but she knows she can fly away
Oh, she got both feet on the ground
And she’s burning it down
Oh, got her head in the clouds
And she’s not backing down
Now what I gonna ask myself is why did I choose to write this song so high, and I mean, that’s probably what’s gonna come up on some occasions because I didn’t get to the chords yet and I’m asking myself what made me write this song that high, so now you have to wait for the chords because we can have a disaster.
This girl is on fire
This girl is on fire
She’s walking on fire
Here's the Girl on Fire video clip with the lyrics below.
She's just a girl, and she's on fire
Hotter than a fantasy, longer like a highway
She's living in a world, and it's on fire
Feeling the catastrophe, but she knows she can fly away
Oh, she got both feet on the ground
And she's burning it down
Oh, she got her head in the clouds
And she's not backing down
This girl is on fire
This girl is on fire
She's walking on fire
This girl is on fire
Looks like a girl, but she's a flame
So bright, she can burn your eyes
Better look the other way
You can try but you'll never forget her name
She's on top of the world
Hottest of the hottest girls say
Oh, we got our feet on the ground
And we're burning it down
Oh, got our head in the clouds
And we're not coming down
This girl is on fire
This girl is on fire
She's walking on fire
This girl is on fire
Everybody stands, as she goes by
Cause they can see the flame that's in her eyes
Watch her when she's lighting up the night
Nobody knows that she's a lonely girl
And it's a lonely world
But she gon' let it burn, baby, burn, baby
This girl is on fire
This girl is on fire
She's walking on fire
This girl is on fire
Oh, oh, oh...
She's just a girl, and she's on fire
