More Than Words – Extreme

So for my first real post, there's only one place to start.
The song that inspired my blog’s title. More Than Words by Extreme.

This was released when I was 17 (1991) around the time I started to learn to play guitar and write songs. So I really admired the phrasing and finger picking style going on here. This song is a great example of someone pouring their heart out saying ‘you need to show me you love me, not just tell me.’ Words are easily said, but not always so easily meant. You need actions to show you care about something or someone, to manage to get that sentiment into a lyric is pretty special. The backing gives you a sense of the longing that's just hanging there, waiting for them to express themselves and confirm what you hope is going on. You have to unjumble some of the lines of the song, it’s a bit like Yoda telling you about 'love' on occasions, saying things the opposite way round to how you would normally say something. This makes it a more interesting listen.

I remember it in the charts, music in the early 90’s was starting on a strange journey. Lots of different genres fighting for our attention, it’s great that real songs like this came along to go with the more ‘Extreme’ stuff, anything from the Spice Girls to Nirvana. But a good song stands the test of time.

It’s such a sweet acoustic ballad, it’s one of them situations where one of a bands songs is much better known (more commercial/main stream in other words) than their others. But when you get a huge song like this into the world, it must be a blessing, especially for royalties if you wrote it, or a curse as most of the audience out there can’t see past this one tune. They turn up at concerts expecting all your other songs to be versions of this one, when it turns out that it’s slightly outside  your normal sound they get disappointed. But that’s why you need to invest time in bands and artists and get to know who they are and want they are about. Don’t just judge them on a first listen or one track, you might just miss something special. Have a look at their website, it’s probably not what your expecting if you judge them on their best known ballad.

Favourite lyric : “More than words is all you have to do to make it real”

Extreme's website