When I was a teen in the 1980s, I was madly in love with every member of the band, Duran Duran. I idolized them and idealized them. I wanted to BE them. My friends and I even tried to do the band thing, we just couldn’t commit. Frankly, I couldn’t play an instrument. I could write, however.

I would spend most of my days from age 13 to 16 writing songs emulating their style as well as many others of the time. I truly became a sort of scholar when it came to Duran Duran and the lyrics written mostly by the lead singer Simon Le Bon. In the late 70s, early 80s, Simon really used words to paint a picture and create an atmosphere. They weren’t “Oh I love you baby, oh yeah” type things. It was more poetic, more shimmery in my mind. I’ve never experienced songs like that before. So I bought TONS of songbooks to read every word the man wrote. I couldn’t figure out what half of it was about.

After a while, I realized that it just didn’t matter.  I took words and made my own “landscapes”. I wrote odd “poems” or stories that were one paragraph long. I  wanted to see what kinds of words I could use in a song. I experimented. I challenged myself with this art. (I still have a notebook with my writings in it. I gave it to my stepdaughter, as she is now a teen writing her own songs.)

In a way, I guess some of that word-smithing opened my eyes to many things in the world. I grew up in the country with not much for Art or Culture. I wanted to get out of there so badly so I could see what the world was like. One of the notes from Sing Blue Silver that Simon wrote that sticks in me was about Kundalini and the union of snake. Yep, that song. Years later, when I started Kundalini Yoga, I knew exactly what the guru was talking about! I’d know this for decades! When I find that notebook, perhaps I’ll post something to give an example of what I wrote.

I just ran across two posts about Simon just today, which inspired today’s post.

The first was for a song he is singing on called: Simple Joys by Beautiful Small Machines (How cool is that?!)

The second is an awesome reading by Simon of his chapter from a book called The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas

I had no idea that long ago that a pop band could be such an inspiration to me even after I grew up.