Standing There

I saw her standing there
I felt like Fred Astaire

Below you can see how this particular pop song performed by The Icelandic Pop Orchestra came into being. I am used to setting other peoples´ lyrics to music, in which case the text always comes first, but in this case I wrote the music first and then the lyrics with some back and forth between the two. My assignment was to include some subtle or not so subtle references to the Beatles.

First, I sent the original sheet music with an associated sound file to Lýður Árnason, the lead driving force of the band. Then, Lýður processed the song in his ProTools software and added his voice as well as female backing vocals to the festivities.

Here is the final — but nothing is ever final! — life studio version from Abbey Road Studios, accessible on Spotify as well as on YouTube with some pictures attached and the lyrics as subtitles.

There is more where this came from. 🙂

Here are the lyrics:

Standing there

I saw her standing there

I felt like Fred Astaire
But still I didn´t dare
Bring myself to declare
My deep desire to dance with her
No, Sir

The main thing is to share
But life is seldom fair
And I was well aware
That she was playing hard to get
You bet

I saw her standing there
I felt like Fred Astaire

I wished to hold her hand
And have her in my band
In a distant land
Where we would dance all night and day
From June till May
We´re here to stay
OK

And then
The day before yesterday

Out there on Hudson Bay
I heard there was a way
To get the girl to say
That she would marry only me
You see

Out on open sea
This was bound to be
It´s plain philosophy
For us perhaps to contemplate
Our fate

I saw her standing there
I felt like Fred Astaire

Do be do be do
PS I love you