Our favourite songs often feel like the musician is singing directly at us, the best of which tap into a rich vein of emotions, desires, concerns, and dreams that seem to soundtrack our lives.
But what if a musician was actually singing specifically about you? Mining that same deep vein to deliver a custom-built song that spoke directly to your experiences?
That’s the fundamental premise behind ‘Custome Melodies’, an experimental song project-come-interactive exhibit created by musician Gery Gersten, who performs under the moniker, Eternal Lips.
Setting up a “private song factory” inside Brooklyn’s Mmuseumm, a disused freight elevator transformed into a tiny art gallery located in an alley in Manhattan’s Tribeca, Gersten spent 10 days inside a plexiglass booth writing custom-made tunes for complete strangers in 20 minute ‘appointments’.
The Custom Melodies process begins with visitors being asked to fill in a personal questionnaire (received from a makeshift receptionist in the adjacent alleyway) asking offbeat questions like: “How many Facebook questions do you have?” or “have you ever had your heart broken?”
The paperwork was then handed to Gersten. Surrounded by an array of guitars, synthesizers, keyboards, drum machines, and a mess of other musical gear in his plexiglass booth, the 30-year-old musician set about writing and recording a song based on the surveyed responses and an individual 20 minute interview – complete with the person’s own choice of song title, band name, and cover art.
(L: A view of the Custom Melodies booth from the street. R: A view inside the booth at a visiting customer. Source: Eternal Lips)
“I like the idea of exploring people through songs and having the site be a constellation of stories that reflect the people themselves and not just their specific musical tastes,” Gersten tells Rolling Stone.
“You can see what random people’s advice and dreams are. Visitors become part of the songwriting process, and that’s a place most audiences haven’t been before. To not know them and try to figure them out and reflect that in a song in 20 minutes is a big artistic challenge, but very exciting.”
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More than 100 people took part in the exhibition, which ran over 10 days in June. The Brooklynite will upload all the results to the Eternal Lips website for participants to hear all the songs as well as custom playlists based on individual questions (eg. “Have you ever been involved with space travel?”).
So what kind of personalised songs did Eternal Lips produce? Well, Gizmodo has a first-hand account of the process that’s well worth a read. Meanwhile, an article in The Wall Street Journal describes one 28-year-old actress, Lucy Kaminsky, getting a slice of experimental pop inspired by Lawrence Of Arabia. With lyrics based on a “cinematic dream she had the night before” including “I was walking in the desert, looking around … nothing but sand all around.”
Gersten explains the Custom Melodies concept was inspired by his own “imaginary band” Eternal Lips, the music project he’s worked on for the last year.
“Eternal Lips is my fantasy of an imaginary band, so why not create a place where people could come to realize their own fantasies of imaginary bands?” says Gersten, who released Eternal Lips’ debut four-track EP in February, featuring collaborations with Sharon Van Etten, TV On The Radio guitarist Kyp Malone, and avant-garde musician John Zorn.
Now working on Eternal Lips’ debut full-length album, Gersten is also considering expanding his song-by-appointment concept further following its successful New York debut, hoping other bands and artists will use the ‘Custom Melodies’ framework in their own ways.
“What would a song factory sound like if the Boredoms did this in Japan?” he asks Rolling Stone. “Or a subway-style booth in Paris or village in Africa? The more people that do it, the cooler it will be.”
