“You can sleep at night”: Labi Siffre’s timeless advice for songwriters
Songwriting is a fairly miraculous thing; you can take all the lessons and tips about songwriting available, but there will still be a handful of artists who seem naturally predisposed to songwriting genius without said lessons. One such figure who has always maintained an otherworldly talent for songwriting is Labi Siffre, who has penned a countless array of enduring classics, which continue to resonate with audiences to this day.
Cutting his teeth in the jazz clubs of Soho back in the 1960s, Siffre gained an unparalleled education of writing and performance, which he carried into his own solo career, which he first embarked upon during the 1970s. Between 1970 and 1975, the Hammersmith-born songwriter released six studio albums, each containing a vast array of different sounds, influences, and songwriting themes.
One of Siffre’s most notable compositions is the funk-ridden ‘I Got The…’, which he originally released in 1975 on the woefully underrated album Remember My Song. The infectious beat of the track is timeless and commanding, as reflected by the fact that it formed the basis of the intensely popular Eminem track ‘My Name Is’ decades later – much to the chagrin of Siffre himself. However, this iconic funk track is worlds apart from, for instance, Siffre’s gut-wrenchingly romantic ‘Bless The Telephone’.
It is this diversity in his songwriting that helped make Siffre such a lauded performer and songwriter during the 1970s and beyond. While his work rarely garnered much commercial attention, aside from a few notable exceptions such as ‘It Must Be Love’, which peaked at 14 in the UK singles chart before going on to become a colossal hit when Madness covered it the following decade, Siffre could always hold his head high as a songwriter with staunch artistic principles, marching to the beat of his own rhythm.
Staying true to yourself is certainly not an easy task within the music industry; the allure of commercial appeal and record company executives has often caused songwriters to completely alter themselves. However, Siffre seemed to maintain his authenticity with effortless grace, consistently refusing to bend to the desires and dictations of the music industry.
During his heyday, back in the 1970s, the gifted songwriter delivered some sage advice for fellow songwriters, which remains increasingly relevant today. “There’s too much personality in music,” he declared. “Who the hell cares about who it is? It’s the music that stands up.” This sentiment, while well-meaning, was not one shared by the music industry, but Siffre never sought to please the suits.
“I would like the audience not to know who I was and not to see me,” he continued. “In completely all forms of music, in fact, not to know the artist, not to see the artist, not to know who wrote the song or the piece, but just to hear the music completely devoid of anything and evaluate the music on its merits.”
In contrast to many of his contemporaries back in the 1970s, Siffre took a radical view on the idea of audience desires. “I don’t believe in giving the audience what they want anyway; I believe in giving the audience my best and making them like it,” he shared. “You don’t make hit records that way, but you can sleep at night.”
In a modern musical landscape dominated by TikTok-centric, crowd-pleasing and therefore soulless songwriting efforts, it is high time that more artists begin to follow the timeless advice delivered by Labi Siffre all those years ago. After all, his material has stood the test of time better than most.
