When the live-action remake of Mulan came out, they added a new song titled “Loyal, Brave & True” by Christina Aguilera. The tune is nice, the song is fine – the lyrics are all wrong!
Whoever wrote this song did not understand the character of Mulan at all!
So – I re-wrote the lyrics. I took what they had, and I moved around and fixed the lyrics so that now they fit for Mulan – they’re “True” to her character.
I’m only going to put down the lyrics as I’ve re-written them, so if you want to hear the original lyrics then you’ll have to go and look them up.
Here we go:
“War is now calling,
Over my shoulder,
I hear the soldiers cry.
All for my family,
Reason I’m breathing,
I’ll take my sword and try.
Should I ask myself in the water
What a warrior would do?
I just know beneath my armor
That I’m loyal, brave, and true.
That I’m loyal, brave, and true!
Losing is easy,
Winning is harder.
I don’t know what to do!
Out in the open,
No one to save me,
Will you turn and leave me too?
Should I ask myself in the water
What a warrior would do?
Can’t you see beneath my armor
That I’m loyal, brave, and true?
That I’m loyal, brave, and true!
Cold is the morning,
Warm is the dream,
Chasing the answer
That I can’t see.
Will I be stronger?
Will I be weak?
Will you stay with me?
Here I am without my armor,
Standing in my father’s shoes.
Even though it now is harder,
I’ll stay loyal, brave, and true!”
So, yeah! That’s my re-write.
I feel like this way more captures the heart of who Mulan is as a character. She IS loyal, brave, and true. She never questioned that. She questioned almost everything else in her life, but NEVER that she was loyal, brave, and true.
In fact, I’m pretty sure that she felt like that was ALL that she had to offer. She wasn’t a perfect, beautiful, feminine daughter, she didn’t know how to be the perfect soldier – but she knew that she was always loyal, brave, and true.
THESE lyrics show that! (Maybe one day I’ll record a cover with these lyrics!)
For your pleasure, I’ve attached an orchestral cover of the song – that way you can sing the song with these new lyrics without the distraction of the bad lyrics. (Yes, I said what I said, the original lyrics were straight up bad! But the tune, and the idea for the song and this cover, is beautiful!)
Every year for the last 15 years, during trick or treating on Halloween is when my dad busts out his Christmas playlist.
This year, thought I normally wait until after Thanksgiving to put up my Christmas tree, I simply couldn’t wait! I put it up mere days after Halloween – and I’m so happy I did. For some reason, now that I’m older, the Christmas season just always seems to fly by to fast.
So, anything I can do to make it last just a little bit longer, I’m going to do.
These are my (first) top 5 classic Christmas songs, that I have to hear every year no matter what!
#1: Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms
#2: The Christmas Song by Alvin & The Chipmunks
#3: It’s Beginning To Look Alot Like Christmas by Bing Crosby
#4: Please Come Home For Christmas by Southside Johnny Lyon
#5: Santa Baby by Kylie Minogue
Aaaaagh all of these get me in the Christmas shopping, baking, decorating mood! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
How would you guys like weekly song recommendations? Songs with writing prompts on the side?
You would?
Really?
Great!
Here you go! 🙂
I’m gonna give you a song, a theme, a place and a time.
#1: Alone by Junny from Witch’s Diner OST.
Story Prompt: Unrequited Love and (to make it more interesting) the place will be Space and the time will be 15th Century.
#2: Billie Bossa Nova by Billie Eilish.
This song is a little sassy – I keep trying to think of a story prompt to make it funny, but I can’t think of anything hahaha xD Write whatever you want just make it PG!
#3: Solar Waltz by Cosmo Sheldrake.
Story Prompt: You’re an android in a steampunk city in the sky and you’re falling in love for the first time.
#4: One Headlight by the Wallflowers.
Story Prompt: It’s a snowy day in NYC and you’re hunting down a lead for a story that’s going to get you that big promotion at the paper.
#5: Diary, from Feel Good to Die OST.
Story Prompt: A hard working book seller in the 12th century that’s on the run from the law.
That’s all I got! Hahaha, I hope you guys enjoy the music 🙂 let me know if you write any stories!
There are many ways to take notes for your novel – a pen and paper, a napkin, a word document, audio notes, the note app on your phone, a recorder, a crazy board, a crazy wall, a well trained parrot who listens to everything that you have to say about your novel and then repeats it back to you verbatim…
It is very important to take notes for your novel, but it is just as important to make sure that you don’t get bogged down by them. For example, whenever I hear a writer talk about drafting an outline (I know it’s smart and I have done it myself at least once or twice) I feel my creative well drying up.
I don’t note-take on paper as often as I probably should, but I do take notes on my novel almost daily – whenever I’m listening to music.
The wonderful thing about this method is that if ever I’m feeling like, “I’m not in the mood to write.” I can just play a certain song on repeat and suddenly BAM! I’m in the scene and I’ve got to get it down.
A favorite hobby of mine is editing music videos (for movies, shows, etc), so whenever I’m listening to music I’m planning a video. And a lot of the time the videos that I’m planning are impossible to make because they haven’t been written yet – so the clips are all just stuck inside my head. It can be very frustrating, wanting to watch a movie or music video that hasn’t been made – but when the words finally make it to paper, ah yes, now that’s a good feeling indeed.
Here is a song that instantly takes me to the finale of my book! 😉
What are your favorite ways to take notes? Or, what is a song that instantly gets you in the writing mood?
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