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Singer-Songwriter Lail Arad Wrote a Beautiful Love Letter to Leonard Cohen

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Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 4.00.22 PM.pngUK singer-songwriter Lail Arad recently paid a visit to the PAPER kitchen to perform a few songs off her forthcoming, untitled sophomore album (out next year), and tell us a bit more about her music background and the inspirations behind tracks like "Pickled Love" and "Milo." Not long after her visit, Arad recorded her album's single -- "1934 (A Song For Leonard Cohen)" -- a particularly appropriate love letter to the iconic musician who turned 80 yesterday and will be fêted at a special birthday celebration in London tonight, which, fittingly, is also the launch party for Arad's track. Watch Arad's kitchen concerts and scope the video "1934 (A Song For Leonard Cohen)," below. You can download the single HERE.



"1934 (A Song For Leonard Cohen)"

When did you first start writing music?

I think it was more or less when I finished high school. I took a year off before going to college and I started playing around with songs. And then when I started university, I knew that I'd do music as soon as I finished and so when I graduated, I started doing it seriously.

Can you tell us about the inspirations behind your songs?

"Pickled Love" is a slightly older song that's been hanging around for a while. I guess it was the post-rationalization of a breakup -- but quite a while after the fact. "Milo" is a French number. It's such a crazy song that started as a joke to myself, really. I was at the gym, which is the only time I have contact with [Top 40] music. I just realized one day that most of the songs I heard that morning were saying, "say my name, say my name." I realized that with me, that wouldn't work because no one can pronounce my name. So that's how the chorus came about -- how you can't say my name. But ultimately I think the good thing about songs is that they can mean different things to different people and once they're out in the world, they're not really yours anymore. So we'll see what people make of them.

Aside from finishing up your second album, are you working on any other projects at the moment?

I'm writing a novel. It's on a third draft right now -- probably the third of 30. It's so much longer than writing a song. I could have probably written a hundred songs in the time it took to write one chapter. But it's really exciting. A lot of it is fiction but it's also very much about music. It's in the early stages. I didn't even intend to write a novel necessarily but very quickly this thing took form. That's probably all I should say.



"Pickled Love"



"Milo"

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