Hayley Mary Waxes Lyrical On Some Fave Lyrics In Honour Of New EP

The first lyrics that you remember being grabbed by

The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
"Oh, my love, my darling, I’ve hungered for your touch." I saw this in Ghost. It was the first song that made me fall in love with music. The pure romance of it all. It also became the first song I ever learnt to sing.

A lyric you wish you’d written

Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me
“I want you to want me. I need you to need me. I’d love you to love me. I’m beggin' you to beg me." So simple it's almost cheating. I don’t know what happened when this was being written, but I feel like those lines just came out of a spirit in a wall somewhere, as natural as the sun and the rain. I wish I had been sitting next to that wall with my guitar when they came.

Your favourite lyric from your new release

Hayley Mary - 27
“You pimps disguised as charming radicals, will hear that battle cry, at the turning of the heavens.” I don’t always feel as cynical as this song makes me sound, but I certainly have my moments. I think this line summed up how I feel at times about a certain type of well-meaning, preaching activism coming from people who know very little about an issue, but who want to appear righteous for ultimately rotten reasons. There’s a fair bit of that these days. I’ll leave it at that.

A lyric you think is perfect

David Bowie - Heroes
“I can remember standing by the wall, and the guns shot up above our heads and we kissed as though nothing could fall." I don’t know what he meant by this in his own mind but I don’t think that matters particularly. When art is great, it’s because it has meaning beyond the maker’s. To me, this song, possibly my favourite of all time, was a perfect representation of love as resistance in dystopian times. Eternally relevant. 

A lyric that makes you happy

DMA'S - We Are Midnight
The entire song, by DMA’S. My partner Johnny Took flew down to Melbourne to see me before we were going out and he wrote this song about us on my balcony.

A lyric that makes you sad

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
“We only said goodbye with words. I died a hundred times. You go back to her and I go back to black.” This song was actually just as impactful before Amy passed away. The fact that she did makes her happier songs sadder to me, but this one was always heartbreaking.

A Lyric Everyone Should Know

The Church - Unguarded Moment
“So deep, deep without a meaning, I knew you’d find me leaving. Tell those friends with cameras for eyes...” I love when lyrics are actually poetic. It’s not all the time. The Church introduced me to the concept of the Australian gothic. They are underrated in general in my opinion.

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Hayley Mary's new EP is out now. Check it out below!