Name: Gina Été
Nationality: Swiss
Occupation: Songwriter, musician, string arranger
Current release: Gina ÉTÉ's new single "F***you:you" is out now via Backseat. Full-length album Prosopagnosia will follow February 7th 2025.
Recommendations: My favorite album this year is Dawuna’s Glass Lit Dream – it’s so fragile, so calming. I love to fall asleep with it.
And I’d recommend reading Jede Frau by Agota Lavoyer, especially to any man reading this interview.
If you enjoyed this Gina Été interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, tiktok, and Facebook.
For a deeper dive, read our earlier Gina Été interview.
Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?
My first musical experiences were purely classical and lyric-less. (Though I did go to opera and I hated it, never understanding the lyrics anyway) But I loved learning languages and always felt the need to express my emotions, turning my inside out in some form of words, writing diary for a long time.
My first proper song I wrote with 16 years after the first experience of losing a loved one to age – it helped me cope with the sadness and the unexpected vastness of those feelings and since then I knew, I wanted to be a songwriter!
It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?
I totally get it.
There are some feelings, some states of mind, that are hard to express in words – it might take long abstracts, trying to describe the emotion, but still each reader might interpret the words differently! A musical piece however can transmit an emotion in seconds – and probably it would make most people from a similar cultural background associate the same feelings with it!
So when words might be ambiguous, music has a fully intuitive, unmistakable emotional power! But that’s what I love most about songs – you have it both!
Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?
Hm. Possibly these 2 things:
1) Expressing what I’d fear telling in direct dialogue? (like being angry, hurt, disappointed, reproachful, telling the painful truth or also being hopelessly in love)
2) Channelling my own heavy feelings like doubts or hopelessness into something I like! "F***you:you" is one of these songs – I was so angry, but now at least I can dance to it …
What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?
At first there was Aimee Mann and her album lost in space – she’s weaving beautiful metaphors, that make the underlying unspoken feelings crystal clear!
In the German language it was clearly Sophie Hungers “1983” that shook me most – how exactly and painfully she depicts social issues by using these weird, creepy images, the song still makes me shudder …
I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?
I guess by the current definition of poetry, song lyrics would be poetry? Like writing text with intended line breaks, following some form?
I do see songs mostly as poetry, underlined, supported or contradicted by music … though some of it of course can be bad poetry
The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it?
Twisted like any relationship.
What kind of musical settings and situations do you think are ideal for your lyrics?
Hm. I think the music needs to support and carry the purpose of the lyric.
Other than that, I love it all.
When working on music, when do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?
I often write both at the same time – improvising on an instrument, while singing, mumbling phrases, that start making sense line by line.
To me, sound sets the mood that immediately clarifies the feeling the lyrics should be about.
I have troubles writing music under an existing poem, but it’s a fun exercise ;)
Do you feel like the music triggers specific words inside you? Or is more of a feeling or a memory? Would you say there is instantly an entire idea in front of you or does the story grow as you keep listening to the music?
Usually, yes. Hearing a piece of music, a sound, a chord triggers a feeling, a hunch from the beginning that then grows gradually into a bigger picture. If there is no such initial trigger, I can still write a full song, but I’m probably never gonna like it.
My most intense, emotional song “Mach’s Gut” I’ve written in one pull, taking not even an hour, because something so strong was triggered or needed to get out immediately.
Other songs take more time to develop.
More generally, in how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?
I think it mostly doesn't take me to special places, but to special people;
Anywhere in the world you will find musicians and artists , they all live intense lives, usually a bit out of social standards, aside the norm, and somehow we are all connected.
Actually think, I subconsciously chose to do “pop” music specifically for that reason: I admired those people and their lives and I wanted to be friends with them, so I became a musician too.
When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?
Oh definitely, and it goes both ways! I might intuitively chose a range of my voice, that feels nice to say a certain phrase, or I’d chose words with specific vowels, for I have a melody with long notes in my head.
Singing other people’s songs hence often shows me the limitations of my own voice and vocabulary, and makes me try out new stuff, for they have other comfort zones!
In how far are you consciously aware of the meaning of the lyrics you're writing during the creative process? Do you need to have a concrete concept or can the words take the lead?
Usually I just write in a stream of consciousness and it hopefully starts making sense at some point. And also, later one can read more into it, than I’d intended ;)
It happens often though, that I lack like a vers, so I write one, applying the form or concept, following the previous lyric.
What is the value of song lyrics or hip hop bars outside of the music?
I gueeesss not everybody reads books or poetry. But almost everybody listens to music, in public spaces at least – so I’d rather it be some damn good song lyrics we whistle along, than more thoughtless white noise babbling, no?
How do you see the relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody? Do you feel that honing your sense of rhythm and groove has an effect on your lyrics-writing skills?
Mmmm every language comes with a rhythm. So I guess it’s more about hearing the rhythm of a language and playing with that alongside the music?
Or that’s at least what I feel makes phrasing interesting? Or maybe I don’t get the question?
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?
I guess I am looking for a greater purpose or connection with my environment through music. (Greater than in making coffee at least).
But being a professional musician, going to a another soundcheck and playing another show can at times grow into a mundane task. It can be just work. So I do need recovery time off music, as well as creative space by making myself detached from any practical aim (like a concert or a release), in order to look for that initial connection or purpose.
By the way, I do feel that food can also create such connections, for like music. It speaks to pretty much everybody in some understandable form.
