Unsure at first how to pursue her desire to sing, it was not until she was 14 that Emma met a teacher who could help realise her dreams. "She was a little old lady, about 70, and in her day she had been a great singer. She surrounded herself with candles and cats and her piano and I loved the whole atmosphere,” Emma remembers. “I touched these great scores for the first time and read the Italian words which seemed to have a mystery and romance." She also told Emma that she was a soprano coloratura. “Singing was still like playing with a toy to me. She found my voice and slowly started to bring it out."
Emma took lessons with her for two years and was convinced she had found her purpose in life. But she was also approaching an age when her parents were concerned about career prospects and her future. "They didn't think singing could ever be a proper job," Emma recalls. "My father was a policeman and thought that maybe I should follow in his footsteps. My mother was a secretary and she thought that would be a good job for me. I understand why they wanted me to concentrate on my other studies. But to me singing is an affirmation of being alive."
She continues to pay tribute to her early teacher but has never seen her since. “I still feel guilty about stopping,” she explains. All great singers will tell you that the voice is a gift, and not being able to use that gift left Emma feeling hollow. "I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I felt I had done something wrong. I felt all bottled up. If I don’t sing I explode," she says.
Her desire to sing did not go away and was soon to re-emerge in a radically different form when she joined a heavy metal band. "Some guys in my class were forming a rock group and they were actually looking for a male singer," Emma recalls. "They wanted someone who could scream, so I said I could do that." Her offer was gratefully accepted and for the next two years she abandoned her operatic scales and exercises and smoked two packets of cigarettes a day to give her voice a rougher, rock inflection.
Yet although she enjoyed the screaming, she began to miss the music of the opera. One day a friend of her mother's took the young rock singer to a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at a Parisian opera house. It was the first time she had ever seen an opera on stage and she was entranced. "I thought after hearing something so beautiful I had to die," she recalls. "We had seats on the balcony and I remember wanting to jump off it and fly."
She began once again looking for a teacher and enrolled at a music school. Yet she found the style of teaching cold and formal, and soon took off with a friend for New York. "While I was there I sang some r&b, which in a way has a similar power to opera. It's very earthy and it's contributed a lot to the way I approach singing today," she says.
When she eventually returned to France, she again resumed singing lessons. But by now she had decided she didn't want to go into opera, particularly after one teacher had accused her of introducing a groove into her delivery of a famous aria. "That set me thinking I should find my own ways of expression and use my voice to invent something of my own."
A chance meeting at a party with the French composer and pop star Jean-Patrick Capdvielle gave her the opportunity. They had met before but with an audacity she still wonders at, she asked him to write an album for her. "But I'm not Verdi," he told her. "And I'm not a proper opera singer so we should do something together," she replied.
Her boldness clearly made an impression for a week later, he rang her and they began working together. "There was this perfect moment when it was so evident it was going to work," Emma says. Indeed it worked so well that the resulting album Carmine Meo, released in 1997, has now sold in excess of two million copies. The album roared to the top of the French album charts, selling 100,000 copies in its first three months and earning Emma her first of many gold discs. That success was soon echoed on the international market, as Carmine Meo rose to the top of the charts worldwide, often overtaking albums by the likes of Céline Dion and Madonna.
But whereas most of the writing on Carmine Meo had been done by Capdvielle, for her second album Emma was determined to write her own material. Signed to a new label, Ark 21, she began to look around for a new musical collaborator. Miles Copeland, head of her new label, recommended Graeme Revell, a composer whose work had appeared on the soundtrack to the Red Planet movie. It proved to be a perfect fit. "In his music I found an echo of what I was looking for," Emma says.
My Soul
Emma Shapplin Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Thy tears to taste.
Their lapping sound.
My mounts now raste...
My soul I drowned.
Thy tears to taste.
Their lapping sound.
Trusting...
Your heart to other lights...
But you're trying...
But you're trying...
If you want to run...
That's alright with me.
Your mettle made us yield...
Mine will set you free...
If you want to run.
Don't look back baby.
Ô you want to run away...
I'll survive, I'll be fine...
My soul I fold...
To thy evil eyes...
Thy lies to hold.
My mounts now ride.
My soul's bereft...
(trusting).
Of thy body's depth... It's...
(your heart to other lights)
Just your point of view...
(But you're trying...)
But you're trying...
If you want to run...
That's alright with me.
Your mettle made us yield...
Mine will set you free...
If you want to run.
Don't look back baby.
Ô you want to run away...
I'll survive, I'll be fine...
If you want to run...
That's alright with me.
Your mettle made us yield...
Mine will set you free...
If you want to run.
Don't look back baby.
Ô you want to run away...
I'll survive, I'll be fine...
My soul I drowned.
Thy tears to taste.
Their lapping sound.
My mounts now raste...
The song "My Soul" by Emma Shapplin is a powerful and emotive ballad that speaks to the complexities of human relationships, particularly the struggle to maintain trust after a deep betrayal. The opening lines, "My soul I drowned, Thy tears to taste, their lapping sound, My mounts now raste" suggest a sense of surrender and sacrifice, a willing drowning of the singer's own spirit to taste the tears of another, to take on their pain and suffering as their own. This imagery highlights the intense emotional labor required in relationships, the ways in which we often lose ourselves in the process of trying to understand and empathize with others.
The chorus of the song, "If you want to run, that's alright with me, Your mettle made us yield, Mine will set you free," speaks to the struggle to maintain trust and connection in the face of betrayal. The singer seems resigned to the fact that their partner may choose to leave and is willing to let them go, recognizing that their own inner strength and resilience will carry them through. The repetition of the phrase "If you want to run" throughout the chorus also emphasizes the ambivalence and uncertainty in the relationship, the sense that their partner's loyalty is always in question.
Overall, the song "My Soul" is a beautifully wrought exploration of the difficulties of maintaining trust in intimate relationships, and the emotional risks and rewards of surrendering oneself to another.
Line by Line Meaning
My soul I drowned.
I have lost my spirit, my passion, my essence.
Thy tears to taste.
I have tasted your tears, your sorrows, your pain.
Their lapping sound.
I have heard the sound of your tears, the gentle lap of waves on a distant shore.
My mounts now raste...
My heart now races, my mind is restless with grief.
Trusting...
Having faith, believing in something greater.
Your heart to other lights...
You put your faith in others, hoping for guidance and illumination.
But you're trying...
You are doing your best, despite the difficulties and setbacks.
If you want to run...
You have the freedom to leave, to pursue your own path.
That's alright with me.
I accept your decision, even if it brings me pain.
Your mettle made us yield...
Your strength and determination have caused us to give way, to accept defeat.
Mine will set you free...
My courage and determination will help you break free from your own limitations.
Don't look back baby.
Do not regret your choice, do not dwell on the past.
Ô you want to run away...
You yearn for escape, for a new beginning.
I'll survive, I'll be fine...
I will find a way to move on, to heal and grow from this experience.
My soul I fold...
I have surrendered my spirit, my will, to the power of evil.
To thy evil eyes...
I have fallen under the influence of your wicked gaze.
Thy lies to hold.
I have clung to your false promises, your deceitful words.
My soul's bereft...
I am empty, lost, without purpose or meaning.
Of thy body's depth... It's...
I have been deprived of the fullness of your being, it is a tragedy.
Just your point of view...
It is only your perspective, your opinion, that matters in this situation.
If you want to run...
You have the power to leave, to seek your own destiny.
That's alright with me.
I respect your choice, even if it brings me pain and sorrow.
Your mettle made us yield...
Your strength and courage have caused us to surrender, to accept defeat.
Mine will set you free...
My own courage and determination will help you break free from your own struggles and fears.
Contributed by Maya W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.