"Your Love is a Song"/"Yellow"
- Jan 16, 2017
- 2 min read
The Songs:
Your Love is A Song - Switchfoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px0EXdyPkA0
Yellow - Coldplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PDUO3l8xiM
The Backstory:
I’ve known both of these songs for several years, and only recently associated them with each other. “Your Love is a Song” is by the band Switchfoot, released in 2010. Many of Switchfoot’s lyrics can be considered Christian, but they are generally labeled as an alternative rock band. “Yellow” is by the band Coldplay, released in 2000. There’s a ten-year gap and two continents’ difference between these two songs, but they do have three things in common lyrically: both songs invite the listener to look at the stars, to feel music, and be reminded of love.
The How:
The thing I run into sometimes is that it’s hard to make mash-ups by yourself. Unless you have other people to perform with, and/or technology that allows you to loop or record alongside yourself, you can’t do any layering of songs or harmonies. So for this one I basically spliced sections of “Yellow” into “Your Love is a Song.”
There is not a ton of similarity about these songs (other than both titles start with the letter Y and they’re both in 4/4 time), but they work pretty well in the key of B. I begin with the intro of “Yellow,” since its sound is familiar to people who know the song. Then instead of the first verse of “Yellow,” I start the first verse of “Your Love is a Song.” I sing through the first verse, chorus, second verse and chorus fairly closely to the original. Then after building up the second chorus and “bridge” section, I bring the song back down and play a few lines from the first verse of “Yellow.” After those few lines, I start to build with the chorus of “Yellow,” growing steadily and connecting the last phrase into the final chorus of “Your Love is a Song.” As an “outro,” I use part of the tag of “Yellow” (“It’s true, look how they shine for you, look how they shine for you, look how they shine”) and end it with a final “Oh your love is a song.”
Hope this song brightens your day! As always, feel free to comment, share, or suggest mash-up ideas. Be on the lookout for my next post: the Mashup Challenge!!!
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