How's About Some Romance?

For context, here's 'Romance' by North Londn Singer/Songwriter, Lana Shelley.

It's hard to be truly objective of a friend's work.

I met 'Lana' in 1997 at the Ealing Jazz festival. Introduced by a friend of a friend, 

In that summer, the one before my peers and I became 'Freshers' at university in September,  I was stil a budding writer and vocalist.

A rapper or Hip Hop artist by nature with around three years of recorded demos under belt, yet  confused by two summers in a band with school friends where I got caught up in the waves of mid 90s Brit Pop and Jimi Hendrix.

I also discovered Jazz, a natural retro progression from claiming Jamiroqual as 'my band' from the early 90s. 

Jazz was and is, not really a genre I seek out.

I like it when it's being infused. My love of Gangstarr, Digable Planets and the Spike Lee film, 'Mo Betta Blues' were all based in Jazz. I explored it, got it, learned the names, the albums and,,, still I really only like the fusion aspect, bands like Stereolab, G Love & Soecial Sauce and well, there's enough Jazz fused. singular Hip Hop tracks to generously fill a playlist.

Meeting the foundation of 'Tom Mansi & Thr icebreakers.' or Tom, James, Paul with additional vocals from Lana gave my musical tastes an edge, an appreciation for live, raw sound and of course, double bass. There was also a different swag with these guys, different from the Hip Hoppers, Hardcore Jungle/Drum n Bass crod, Indie and Grunge kids of the era,

Being in a room with them is something else, like a sophisticated chil, way beyond our late teen years at the time and I've been lucky enough to go on to perform on stage with most of them and did some freestyling with Lana in a rehearsal room backed by the boys.

What I remember from singing with Lana, is that I'm not really a singer.

I can kind of hold a tune, I used to front a band, but, I'd be silly to call myself a singer. 

Lana is a singer. Her speaking voice made me nervous, like, her vocal chords were made of superior, smooth fabric.

When she riffed with her voice, it was just sensational. A blues tone, a jazz tone, a splash of soul and dash of folk. There is no way I should know someone that talented or even, eventually collaborate musically with her.

A couple of years ago,  needed a change in my music listening habits and had noticed, Lana had amassed quite a library on 'all good muisc streaming services.'

There was a track with a promo video she had recorded maybe a decade or two before and I remember thinking... this is 'Lana does pop.' She is way more sophisticated than that. That was just my opinion at the time.

I tuned out, admittedly, I was heavily in a DJ residency where I had fine tuned my ear to have a high success rate of knowing which songs 'would work' on a crowded Saturday night an which wouldn't. My music taste was shot to pieces by the constant need to know whch tracks were 'hot' in bar and clubland.

I had managed, however, to get Tom Mansi & The Icebreakers a live gig at the venue of my residency because I knew ;Holly' was good enough to 'please the masses' and not clear the room on a Saturday night. I was right, so in the random East Midlands town on Kettering, we performed a dobule header. I warmed up for them as a DJ and also played a post-gig set.

I had remembered that I loved Lana's voice. I had remembered the crudley recorded demos that Tom had let me copy on to tape which featured her voice.

I was also in the headspace to listen to music I hadn't heard before.

What I discovered was I'd been missing out by not paying attention. Sure I've known Lana since 1997 and at a stretch, we knew each other to talk to, but we were far from the friends we are now. I listened and each song I discovered on her 2021 album 'Ruthless' struck a chord.

This is where I discovered track 5, 'Romance.'

I liked the flow of it, the riffs in it and her voice completes it. 

Now, the lyrics, I got them. They don't necessarily reflect my life nor do they remind me of past experience. I just got what she was saying. 

My interpretation of the broad theme, 'For things to work, you have to keep working on them' at best or at worst, 'don't lose sight of what got us into a relationship with complacency.' Simply 'don't take me for granted.'

That's my interpretation of Lana's art in this song, anyway.

It made me wonder. What would the 'Lana' on the track's 'partner's' answer be?

Did they need an answer? After all, Lana's prefix to her chorus sugggests she has ideas how to solve the lack of romance and encourages her suitor to follow her.

This opened a can of worms labelled 'Literally VS Not Literally.'

An easy story would be that the misfiring 'partner' in the universe of the song, would do all the right things and the end scene would be first class tickets to Paris.

'What if...' I thought... the 'partner' in the song's universe was cute enough to be in the relationship, but beyond that 'honeymoon' period, an emotionally immature try hard, who tries to respond to 'Lana's' cries for romance but doing everything wrong, with the hope that everything will be better and they'd be physically intimate and live happily ever after.

'What would that sound like?' began to creep into my head.

I wasn't about to ask Lana to rerecord her track as I genuinely didn't know how bringing two sides of the story into the track would work or if she would want it to, after all, the song had been published 4 years prior to any thoughts I would have on it.

I was just stuck in the music of it.

One of my favourite remixes of all time, is Portishead's remix of Paul Weller's 'Wild Wood.' Essentially it's Wild Wood VS Portishead's trip hop drum programming and additional haunting instrumentation.

This gave me an idea. I loved 'Romance' but I craved it to be fused into some Hip Hop.

With Lana's permission, I bought the track on Apple so that I could sample it. I put it into my DJ software to work out the tempo then slapped into into Garageband to layer a drum pattern in. 

As I could now freely add things, split thing up to extend any section and add a number of effects onto any bits I chopped up, I found myself creating a little space for 'some bars to be spit.'

Here's the trouble. I don't write lyrics anymore and any demo, post when I used to really work on creating some Hip Hop, was done by thinking of a couple of lines, recording a couple lines, repeat until 16 bar verses were complete.

I knew what I wanted to say but not what I needed to write so... I just kept listening to my remix and kind of played about with themes in my head.

I had to stay true to the song's 'Lana' so I couldn't overstep, undercut or worse, make it about me. This wasn't an equal feature... My mission was just to play an 'idiot' who the lyrics could be aimed at.

'I took your advice
Do something nice right,
Like booking a flight right..?' became my opening bar and I couldn't shake it.

I had to make my 'Bazz' get worse at romance as the section I had created for myself wet on.

I had the idea for 'Bazz' to listen to the point 'Lana' was making but get it wrong.

I also need my 'Bazz' to hand back into real Lana's narrative, in which there is no point of view from the 'partner.' Essentially the tole I'd created served as a behind the scenes of the track to maybe emphasise where 'Lana' in the song's universe is coming from.

I knew I wanted to end on 'Let's skip the romance and...' well, be crude, which would place the narrative of the song back in Lana's original lyrics at calling out the need for romance.

I eventually, after weeks, sat down in a lunch hour. with my microphone and ipad and began to freestyle the lyrics two lines at a time.

I managed to weave into Lana's story that her 'partner' played by a fictional 'me' would attempt a night of romance by ignoring her pleas to hear some music of the jazz, rock or blues variety and rehash a mix tape of Dance/Club music from the 90s. 

Originally I wanted to say 'Trip Hop' but you could argue that Massive Attack's albums have a calming, mood setting, quality about them,

To set the tone and the trail from the '90s club mix tape' 'he' provides, 'Bazz' has not bought candles to set the tone, he has bought cheap, tacky, raver's glow sticks and placed them in the candle holders (hence the lead image of this blog).

This to go with an apparent foam machine he has hired which, I'm pretty sure would just launch foam at them both intermittently and I dare say, do some cosmetic damage to the living quarters they share. 

'Bazz' finishes off with 'Let's get wired, skip the romance till we get tired...' Which is where I layered Lana's vocal back in, 'How's about some romance?'
'His' feeble attempt to get 'Lana' into bed serving as validation for 'Lana' interrupting with 'How's about some romance?' essentially going back to square one of the track... Work needs to be put in over lazy entitlement or comlacency in a relationship,

As any creative might tell you, a simple question can open a galaxy of exploration.

That was mine, from just, 'I should be listening to Lana Shelley right?'

When I finally managed to see her live in July 2026, at Green Note in London's Camden Town, Lana & The Icebreakers played 'Romance.' She had said she doesn't normally, so selfishly, I'm taking that as a nod to my 'fan boy' like enthusiasm for her music.

And as she was introducing the track, I got an idea....

Find Lana Shelley on Apple, Spotify and Soundcloud.