Archive

The Atypical Songwriting of Swati Sharma

Swati Sharma doesn’t necessarily love Bruce Springsteen. The out singer-songwriter may be from the East Coast and sport a jean jacket on her album cover, but her decision to record the Boss’ “I’m On Fire” for her debut LP was just a compulsion.

“I got dumped really badly and I had the flu,” Sharma said. “I was couch-ridden, really depressed and really, really sick. I’d heard ‘I’m on Fire’ five or six times in my life, and I think I picked up the guitar and I was almost, not covering it, but playing it because it was in my head again. I just played it the way I heard it in my head. I didn’t have a copy or anything like that.”

On Sharma’s debut album, Small Gods, her version of the desire-and-desperation tune sits alongside tales of picking up prostitutes in Atlantic City (“Blackjack”) and aching to leave behind a town full of heartbreak (“Dodge”). It’s an album devoid of boring clichés and repetitive rhymes. Instead, Sharma is more akin to Diane DiPrima and other Beat poets who weren’t afraid to touch on topics of lust, greed and emotional abuse.

“I’ve always heard songs in my head,” Sharma said. “They just became so loud that I had no choice but to make it a physical thing.”

A New York City native, Sharma grew up as a classical trombonist who tired of reading and resuscitating other people’s music. After playing Carnegie Hall at 18, she made the switch to a 12-string guitar.

“Classical trombone is very contained and it kind of lets your imagination run wild in a way – what I would be doing if I were not being told exactly what to play and how loud and how soft,” she said. “It kind of made my imagination grow.” Sharma further developed her skills on the acoustic guitar, and soul-folk songs poured out.

Talking about the sounds or the process, though, is unbearable for her. “Athletic? Tall? Blond? I don’t know,” she said, laughing as if the idea of describing her songs were the most ridiculous notion. “How would you describe me as a person? I don’t know!”

Between discovering her songwriting side and recording Small Gods, Sharma played Lilith Fair and the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, where she stood out with a powerful set that was also a bit scandalous. (Consider her song “Money,” where she sings, “You want me to get horny? I can f— myself.” Most likely, Sarah McLachlan wasn’t singing along to that tune.)

Songwriters typically focus heavily on love or the loss of it, but on Small Gods Sharma seems to have other things on her mind. “I don’t really write many love songs. I haven’t had any so far. It’s more or less, you know … What are my songs about?” She laughed then continued: “I kind of look at things in a more inspirational way, like looking at things as a narrative in a book. I like to look at things from far away.”

That her songs are about atypical characters and ideas is even more interesting when you consider that Sharma also claims that all her songs are autobiographical. “I don’t make stuff up,” she said. Knowing this adds an intense realism to lines such as: “Dopamine falling. Stay. ‘Cause I’m freakishly lonely and if you’re not afraid of freaks tell me your name.”

Drugs, sex and Sharma’s raw version of acoustic rock and roll – but despite the subject matter, Sharma doesn’t think her music is dark in any way. Nor is it specifically New York, despite that being the setting for most of her life (and, therefore, her songs).

“New York is very edgy,” she said. “I think it’s like my personality type. A lot of people call me dark, but with darkness, the light is brighter. It’s kind of hard to describe, I guess. In a way, if music’s dark, then I see there’s a beautiful light and some imagination to it.”

With being so honest, Sharma said she’s lucky she hasn’t gotten into any trouble with exes. “I’m not going to do the real first and last name kind of thing,” she said of her personal lyrics. “It’s kind of about karma: I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but if it’s certainly not something I’d say to someone’s face, I’ll just write it in a song and have them hear it and it’ll seriously let them know.”

 

As an Indian woman and an out lesbian in the music industry, Sharma said she has been “blessed or blind, or maybe both,” as she hasn’t faced any discrimination regarding her ethnicity or sexuality.

“I’ve never gotten any, ‘You can’t play because you’re Indian’ or ‘You can’t play because you’re gay,'” she said. “As a lesbian in the musical sense, I’ve never felt any discrimination whatsoever. But I do feel discrimination as a musician. People definitely decide what kind of person a musician is and that’s it. I dated a girl once and it was great and I was shocked when she was like, ‘You know, I really wanted to see what it was like to date a musician.’ That’s like the same thing as saying, ‘I always wanted to date an Indian.’ People like to label you.”

Like most musicians, Sharma does not want to be categorized. She doesn’t let being referred to as a lesbian slip by without also mentioning that she reserves the right to change her mind at any time. “I’m definitely an out lesbian but I’m not going to say ‘never’ about men,” she said. “I’ve always been drawn to women, but I don’t like to put myself in a box that says ‘never.'”

But Sharma added that her sexuality does have something to do with her songwriting style, as she inevitably looks at the world through her own, lesbian eyes. “‘Blackjack’ is about picking up a prostitute. I don’t know any straight women that would do that,” she said.

Being out is something Sharma sees as natural and largely a non-issue. “It’s not a shtick,” she said. “I don’t walk around in my life screaming that I’m gay, because I don’t feel straight people should do that if they’re straight. We live our lives the way we live them. I’m not just a gay person. I protest for gay marriage; I’m totally a supporter of all of these causes. But at the end of it, I’m just Swati Sharma and I’m just trying to get through to people and connect to people, gay or not.”

This is most likely why Small Gods is an album that resonates with listeners looking for a deeper connection to songs and lyrics than as background music. The CD is only Sharma’s introduction to the world as a musician, and her plans for the future include recording a “rock record” with a lot of layers and personality that is, above all, “forward-thinking.”

“I don’t want to be conventional,” Sharma said. “I do my best to be forward. I want it to sound like tomorrow.” She’s certainly ahead of the game.

For more on Swati Sharma, visit her MySpace page.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button