Sooner or later
A brand new song, written by Nick, transformed and performed by Kate, set to a 1915 video by Charlie Chaplin.
We love sharing these new things on Songwritings. This time, it’s a simple lyric with lots of internal rhyme and inner turmoil, in which the singer tries to believe things will work out eventually—and who knows, maybe they will. That’s what the gently gospel-tinged melody makes it feel like anyway.
The video pieces together scenes from The Champion by Charlie Chaplin, in which an initial act of kindness finds some kind of reward in the end. Or at least that’s one way of reading it.
We’ll write more about this in our next post. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who reads, watches and listens to this stuff.
Lyrics:
Sooner or later,
opportunity will come
knocking at my door,
so what would I cry for?
Sooner or later,
my hour will come.
Later or sooner,
this weight upon my mind
is gonna get lighter.
Life’ll get brighter.
Sooner or later,
I’ll get my time.
Hopefully sooner,
probably later,
whatever the universe decides.
Hopefully fortune
will knock on my door soon.
Sooner or later, God provides.
God provides.
Sooner or later,
later or sooner,
later or sooner,
sooner or later…
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For anyone new here, Songwritings is a conversation between Kate van der Borgh (writer, D&AD Masterclass trainer, musician, first novel ‘And He Shall Appear’ out with Fourth Estate this autumn) and Nick Asbury (writer, poet, Perpetual Disappointments Diarist, purpose critic, with a side interest in Tin-Pan-Alley-tinged songwriting). The conversation features original songs, usually written by Nick, then reinterpreted and brought to life with Kate on all instruments and vocals.
Another winner! Beautiful lyric and beautiful performance. Although, maybe contrary to the message of the lyric, I feel as though the lesson of the Chaplin film is good fortune = a faithful bulldog. 🐶