The Greatest Line of All - Guest Post by Bel Schenk [26.07.2010]
You can’t take the piss with a tag line.
Launching the latest issue of Voiceworks, writer Tom Cho quoted The Greatest Love of All. While it’s in your head (and I’m sorry, but it will be for the next hour), let’s revisit those lyrics: ‘I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.’
Unlike reality television contestants announcing they are singing Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, you’ll forgive most people for thinking that Houston either wrote this song herself or was the first person to sing it, but neither are true.
Wikipedia says it was written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed and first performed by George Benson. But I digress. This isn’t about the song, the writer or the original recording artist. This is about children. This is about the tag line that gets them to take notice, which is actually more difficult than you might think. Express Media recently came up with a new one. It’s better than ‘Moving Forward’. It’s better than ‘Real Action’. It’s ‘we’re here for young writers’.
‘Teach them well and let them lead the way’ may well have made it, if it A) wasn’t already taken and B) synonymous with those laneway karaoke bars. You see, you can’t take the piss with a tag line. So, what does it actually mean? It may sound simple, but we took ages to come up with it, because so many lines were just not true. We tossed and turned with ‘giving young writers a go’ but that implies they can’t write without us – that they can’t get a WordPress account, or write an essay or a poem by themselves. That’s simply not true. We also thought about changing the line to suit different audiences (one for funding bodies, another for schools, another for hipsters etc), but that proved to be just as difficult.
We were deliberately vague when describing what we are actually here for. Our line suggests that we provide a broad spectrum of services. One young person might call to ask about getting a novel published, another might drop around to ask how to staple together a ‘zine. We’re here for them.
On Q & A last week, the panel debated the meaning of political slogans. Moving forward? Moving forward from what? Lots of people are talking about that, which seems to detract from the real election issues. This may be a smart move by both the major parties and perhaps I am talking about Express Media’s slogan too much while the ‘real action’ for Express Media (the next funding round, getting more kids involved) takes a back seat. But I do think it’s important to choose something you stand for and make it as noticeable as you possibly can. That’s why you’ll hopefully see ‘we’re here for young writers’ everywhere.
At Express Media’s mini-festival The Big Splash recently, Steven Amsterdam reminded us that writing is the cheapest art form, that you can do any type of special effect for free. That has nothing to do with this post, but I liked it so much that I wanted to include it. Sometimes writers forget that writing is limitless. You can go anywhere.
Express Media might be your first point of call.
Bel Schenk is the Artistic Director of Express Media. If you hadn’t quite noticed, they are here for young writers.
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Comments
Laurie — 26 July at 11:25AM
George Benson rocks his version. When he sings “find your strength in love” at the end, he underplays it, a bit like the early work of Leonard Cohen, or a Wim Wenders movie.
Part of being there for young writers is making sure they don’t think Atomic Kitten wrote Eternal Flame, or that the Strokes invented garage rock.
They’re lucky to have you, Bel.
miriam — 12 August at 01:48PM
Thanks for this post! I like hearing about other adventurers in the literary land of ‘what are we here for’!! I feel that we’re incrementally re-inventing extempore with every new issue, responding to what we receive from contributors, what we hear from readers and even the fact that our readership is changing all the time as well. A constant thrust and parry of shift and response. And now, because [damn you Bel!] that song is going round and round in my head, all I can think of is that verse 1 should say ‘I believe that readers are our future’ and verse 2 should say ‘I believe that writers are our future’. Or maybe in no particular order…