“If You Can Read” is a song based on something I’ve heard my mom say a lot – that if you can read, you can cook. The idea is that cooking is merely a matter of following a recipe. If you do what the recipe says, the dish will turn out fine.
However, I always find cooking to be more than just following the recipe. You need to have some knowledge! When you cook a vegetable until it turns brown…how brown should it turn? Should the whole thing be brown or just the edges? There’s so much I need to know!
I think this idea is true in love, life, and art as well. Just because something should work on paper, it doesn’t mean that it’s easy to execute. Even if you’re a 100% match on OKCupid or your eHarmony quadrants are perfectly aligned, it doesn’t actually mean you’ll have any chemistry, and – even if you do – as I say in the lyric, an actual relationship “takes timing and luck.”
The same thing is true with art. You can study and practice and create, but unless there’s the perfect combination of the right project, the right collaborators, the right space, enough time, and – sure – lots of luck, no artist is guaranteed to make anything worthwhile…much less have professional success
One trick I used to create a lyric here is that I imitated a Paul Simon stanza. Here’s the stanza from his song “Cars are Cars” (listen to the full song here):
I once had a car that was more like a home
I lived in it, loved in it, polished its chrome.
If some of my homes had been more like my car
I probably wouldn’t have traveled this far.
What I loved about this is the way the first line says “car” then “home” and the third line returns with “home” then “car.” I later learned that this is a fancy poetic device called “chiasmus,” which is latin for crossing or “X.”
My stanza that imitated Simon went like this:
A cake’s like a lover who makes your heart leap,
You beat all the eggs, and you drape it with sweets.
If only my lover were more like a cake,
My heart wouldn’t mind all the beatings it takes.
Did you notice that here, instead of “car” and “home,” it’s “cake” and “lover” that switch places? I also tried to be clever a la Paul Simon, punning on the word “beat.” The beat can be like you “beat” eggs or like a heart “beat,” depending on the context. I have to admit that I partially stole this idea from the great singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, who has this lovely stanza from “You Don’t Make it Easy Babe” (listen to this song here):
Your friends ask about me you say I can be found
With the cheap romance novels with their spines battered down
Oh the heart has no bones you say so it won’t break
But the purpose of loving is the pounding it takes
I love all of the personification here. The romance novels have their “spines battered down,” but the heart “has no bones.” I modeled the end of my stanza “the beatings it takes” after Ritter’s “the pounding it takes.” (Picasso said something about good artists copying and great artists stealing, right?).
I may have also stolen the idea to repeat the refrain at the beginning and the end of each verse from “Cars are Cars.” Check out the comparison:
Musically
Musically, the most notable thing here is the addition of Dan Ogrodnik on pandeiro. You can probably see from the video, but the pandeiro is a Brazilian tambourine that is used in sambaand capoeira music. This song had a lot of empty spaces in it that I didn’t want Lucas or I to have to fill, so adding a percussionist seemed to be the natural choice. It also gave me the opportunity to let Dan and Lucas play a bit at the beginning while I sit back and enjoy.
Poor Nancy has to fire off some rapid-fire phrases about cooking. This goes by very fast and has a lot of words to spit out! Mostly, the harmony stays in a somewhat traditional Afro-Cuban minor vamp, but you might notice that at about 4:18, the main melody repeats but with totally different harmony (and rhythm) underneath it, which propels us towards an exciting end. Since this is a list song (the lyrics really just list cooking techniques), it’s often difficult to create contrasts, and this final reharmonization was our way of trying to make sure that it wasn’t oppressively dull.
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Download the sheet music for “If You Can Read” here.
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If You Can Read (Lyrics)
If you can read, you can cook.
If you can read, you can cook.
Measure on a spoon, mix it in a bowl,
Heat it on the stove, serve it when it’s cold.
If you can read, you can cook, you can cook.
If you can read, you can cook.
If you can read, you can cook. If you can read, you can cook.
Buy the berries fresh, at the corner store,
Cook ‘em like a chef, Until they beg for more.
If you can read, you can cook, you can cook.
If you can read, you can cook.
But people don’t come with a clear recipe,
The perfect ingredients bring no guarantee.
You hold them, console them, and hope for the best,
But whether they’ll love you is anyone’s guess.
But lovers don’t boil down to teaspoons and cups –
To locate a soul mate takes timing and luck.
You cook and you clean and you hope and you pray,
And once they arrive, you can’t force them to stay.
If you can read, you can cook.
If you can read, you can cook.
Roast it ‘til it burns or serve it while it’s rare,
Double the amounts, make enough to share.
If you can read, you can cook, you can cook.
If you can read, you can cook.
A cake’s like a lover who makes your heart leap,
You beat all the eggs, and you drape it with sweets.
If only my lover were more like a cake,
My heart wouldn’t mind all the beatings it takes.
If you can read, you can cook.
If you can read, you can cook.
Add some curry paste,
For a little spice,
Salt it to the taste,
And serve it over rice.
Read the instructions in the book,
If you can read, you can cook!