The biological backbone of my songwriting

Love, loss and change are and have always been the biggest drivers for people to make art—I admit they are among my biggest inspirations too. Almost all of my songs are about change (it is especially inevitable in teenage girls’ lives) and love (or the loss thereof). However, as my songwriting journey continues to evolve, I have observed another major inspiration sprinkle itself across my lyrics, manifesting in lexical fields and successions of metaphor.

Biology is my favourite class in school. I took it for my iGCSEs and now take it at Higher Level for my IB (International Baccalaureate). My teacher is one of those miraculous once-in-a-lifetime change-the-entire-course-of-your-being teachers, the ones that somehow balance an adept academic dexterity with a passion for the subject. I’ve always been drawn to teachers that can get their shit done while being both ample strict and humorous—the kinds that can turn your STEM subject into an art form. In particular, my teacher’s flair always turns class into a stand-up comedy show where, by some magic, everyone leaves having had a good laugh and with a completely solid understanding of the biological system we’re studying.

Now, as I write my lyrics, I notice how biological terminology finds its own way into my sentences. Sometimes it appears in metaphor—I’ve written about “[being a] metabolic slum (being unhealthy)” and “aperol in your arteries as [a] catalyst (implying drunkenness).” My use of scientific and biological words has coagulated into a discography-wide semantic field, which includes vocab like “skin cells, oxygen, vitamin, calcium, bones, fermentation, pH 1, carbon monoxide radioactive, teeth, rib, stitch, clinic, diagnosis, X-rays, lungs, skeletal, bandages, doctor, septic, stomach, flesh, medicate, cataract, circadian, drip, wrists, veins, microscope, limb, autopsy, etc.”

After making this observation, I was very curious as to WHAT it is about these terms that inspires my subconscious, and after reflecting on it, I’ve boiled it down to 5 main reasons.

1. These words are inherently VERY PRETTY WORDS! There was a trend going around a few months ago where people made lists of words that would be beautiful baby names if not for their meaning. Chlamydia, Diarrhoea and Aorta were commonly mentioned. Because of the Latin and Greek origins of these words, they all have a beautiful classical and poetic form—one that is especially beautiful when expressed SONICALLY. In songwriting, a lot of what makes lyrics successful distils down to whether the words used are innately ‘pretty’ or not. There are less sonorous words like “elbow”, “quarter” and “therapist” that you may not be likely to add to your lyrics (I reserve the right to use one of these words in my lyrics later, if necessary—not therapist, though; that one is REALLY fugly). They’re not very evocative and quite awkward on the tongue. The beauty of a word like metabolic or vitamin is that they are effectively plosive and vowel-rich, which makes them a sonically surprising but satisfying add.
2. There’s this silver lining I’m constantly trying to reach in my songwriting by finding a lyric that balances directness and poeticness. Something I admire about my favourite songwriters is their ability to craft a sentence that is almost pretentiously descriptive but also skilfully blunt. The beauty of a biological term is that, when used in a sentence, it can form a beautiful sensory description while being the very scientific ROOT of the theme it is describing.
3. I am surrounded by these words! They’re up on post-it notes on my windows, mirrors, walls, scattered along my desk, annotated in my books, embedded in my long-term memory… Part of why I think these terms have appeared almost subconsciously is because I am passively observing them all the time. I live with them!
4. In certain ways, Biology is the antithesis of music making. STEM subjects are objective, mechanical and not very descriptive. Ever since I was young, nothing has inspired me like CONTRAST has. I wanted to be feminine and masculine, to have colour next to monotone, to draw in pencil and then ink, to read about utopia and then dystopia, to live in the bustling city of Singapore and then visit my grandparents in the barren English countryside… Something about it tugged at my heartstrings and catalysed me into art-making. Biology (and Maths) has a similar effect for me. I live a life where my school subjects and my music are the two things I think about most, and I feel that their contradictory yet complementary nature has made both sides equally sustainable.
5. Aside from love, loss and change, biology is probably the biggest miracle of existence! When I sit in class listening to my teacher explain biochemical systems and processes, I can feel my brain POP. I cannot even begin to imagine that there are microscopic transmitters, cells, enzymes and checkpoints in our bodies that are just coded for function in complex systems that keep us alive. When I studied my first few metabolic cycles, I couldn’t believe life was real. It is so awe-inspiring and thought-provoking and SO VERY EXISTENTIAL. When the tiny, complex internal mechanics behind your existence are explained to you, the idea is so miraculous and impossible to grapple with that it makes you believe in magic. And once you have that belief, making art is impulse.

Metabolically yours,

Mila Bea