Write Like A Girl

May 24, 2018
St Mary’s Church, London
Another day, another songwriters’ round. Except this one was different. It had sofas! More importantly, Emily Faye, Vic Allen and Beth Keeping had been inspired to tour the country to celebrate and showcase female songwriters after learning that only 17% (!!) of UK songwriters are women.  

They made the shows all ages to inspire girls to attend, although by busking beforehand they picked up a few football fans along the tour too!

Special guests such as Megan O’Neill, Liv Austen and Izzie Walsh had appeared in each city. Jealous? Yeah, same!

Still, the London crowd was lucky. We got two special guests: Sue McMillan  and Lisa Wright. 

“This tour has restored my faith”
Vic Allen’s song Give Up was self-explanatory in sentiment, so it was a relief to hear that the Write Like A Girl tour had renewed her passion for music. 

She kicked off with a Barcelona, inspired by a surprisingly pessimistic experience. She was invited to visit Spain after a whirlwind holiday romance but decided not to go “because I didn’t want to fall in love.”

At least Drive Thru was about finding love even if it was in a McDonald’s car park!

“The human heart is a complex thing”
Beth Keeping’s first song was Strangers In The Same City, about breaking up and then living parallel lives in the same town.

Naked came next, though she clarified it wasn’t as bad as it sounded! Certainly not as bad as it sounded when she debuted it at a show in front of her parents. In truth, it was about laying everything bare metaphorically. 

Kiss Me To My Lips was written with Australian-Singaporean singer Ming Bridges, who’s due to support Niall Horan on his Singapore tour. 

No Hard Feelings was inspired by a knock back when a venue booker responded to her with “we don’t like your music and we don’t want you to play at our event.” Ouch! All the singers joined in [and several were there to support her a few weeks later when she played the song at the venue in question!!]. 

 “Sometimes I forget that I’m here to perform”
Emily Faye opened up with Open Road, a corker of a summer track, recently featured by Rolling Stone. 

Barefoot was another summery song which was written with special guest, Sue McMillan. “It’s about letting your worries melt away,” Faye explained. She rocked the performance with sassy vocals. 

Next up was a new song, Broken. This was followed by her blissfully beautiful track Me For Me which Faye had written for her cousin and performed at her wedding. 

Grow was a rousing tune and Faye got the crowd laughing by humming the guitar solo.

“They can’t all be crazy, so maybe it’s you?”
Who hasn’t wanted to say that to a guy rewriting his romantic history? Sue McMillan did it in style with the song Can’t All Be Crazy.

Sue McMillan let the crowd guess which popular song she was about to reference in her lyrics. Scarily, not as many recognised the nod to Alanis Morissette’s Ironic as expected. It’s not *that* old, is it?! 

Next up was Hurricanes written with Joe Martin, followed by Boom Time, a song which Jade Helliwell cut on her recent EP.

London’s bonus special guest, Lisa Wright, was still buzzing from her epic EP launch the night before. So were a good portion of the crowd. 

She started with Giving Up The Ghost, about how letting things go is “much harder to do than say.” Her vocals were crystal clear. 

She also performed the incredible track, Tennessee, which she co-wrote with Kaity Rae. So, along with the night’s performers, that’s six kick ass female singer-songwriters working hard to challenge the gender disparity. We’re lucky that they and many more give us everything on stage, in the studio and in the writers’ room. Rock on like a girl!

1. Vic Allen, Beth Keeping and Emily Faye are reuniting on July 14 to perform a Write Like A Girl showcase set at Thame Town Music Festival in Oxfordshire. Look out for them furthering the Write Like A Girl movement in the future.

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