His songs have been played in Singapore and across the region, two of them have been a part of the coveted Global Chinese Golden Chart and today, songwriter and singer Marcus Lee has dropped this latest single “Without Reason”.
Here, we catch up with the crooner on the inspiration behind the single and yes, it’s about the trials and tribulations of heartbreak.
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Hi Marcus, please introduce yourself!
Hi! My name is Marcus李俊緯 (Marcus Lee) and I’m a singer-songwriter from Singapore. Been singing since I was 13 when I was part of Campus Superstar back then, then released my first English single in 2018 and my first Chinese single in 2019.
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What do you do in your spare time and how does it influence your music?
I enjoy playing tennis and board games with friends. These are some ways for me to relax and catch up with friends. I suppose in the interactions and conversations with people, I get inspiration from the things I hear about and from their life stories.
So my music and the things I write about become a combination of both my personal experiences and the stories of the people around me.
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What are your favourite genres of music?
I grew up listening to a lot of punk rock bands in the 2000s, so some of my favourites are Mcfly, Anberlin and Mae. I also really love English classic love songs, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s.
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How did you start writing your latest single, Without Reason? Is there a reason why you mostly sing in Chinese?
This song was a co-write back in 2019 with my friends who are writers at Funkie Monkies Publishing. I was asked to sing the initial demo and even months after recording it, I had the melody stuck in my head so I knew that I really liked the song and decided to work on the lyrics again with the original lyricist.
Choosing to do Mandopop was quite a concerted decision based on a few factors — where we are based geographically as a country with access to the talent (e.g. producers, lyricists) in this region, the size of the market I could potentially tap into and my natural inclination towards more classic and evergreen melodies. Also, I struggled to come up with a unique moniker in English and I realised Mandopop artistes seem to get away with using their Chinese names so it felt like a good choice!
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Sadness, heartbreak and resilience — which of these emotions comes through the strongest in Without Reason?
The message of the song is one of resilience, or at least that’s what I hope to convey. During the conceptualisation of the lyrics and during the delivery of the vocal performance when recording it, I got quite immersed in the bigger storyline of heartbreak so I was filled with a lot of sadness. I think ultimately, the song requires you to feel deeply across a wide spectrum of emotions and then choose how to respond.
It’s normal to let ourselves drown in heartbreak and hurt, but I wanted to make sure that the song carries the underlying message of hope so it ends conclusively, with the final choice to let go and start anew. So I would definitely say the strongest emotion would be resilience.
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What inspired you to write this song?
I was inspired while mulling over a song by Tanya Chua called “If You See Him”. Tanya is one of the artistes I really look up to as someone who also made the transition from English to Mandarin songs.
That song talked about the perspective of imagining what it would be like to bump into someone from your past, in this case, a former love, and what would go down in an encounter like that. Everyone carries such stories and heartaches with them; the things you wish you had said and the ones you wish you hadn’t, and the things you wish you had heard but didn’t.
“Without Reason” takes on a similar theme, focused on the idea of unspoken goodbyes and having to reconcile the hurt and pain that comes with not having all the answers. I envisioned a situation where someone is left to deal with the crumbles of a broken relationship and that turmoil it puts a person in, to the point where it becomes hard to even explain the hurt.
The last line of the chorus goes “You don’t have to understand the tears that I cry,” and I think that encapsulates the pain of the song. It sounds a lot prettier in Chinese though! [Laughs]
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The album cover and press photos are very honest, is there a story behind it?
When my team and I were conceptualising the shots, we wanted a mood that would reflect the nature and the vibe of the song. We wanted it to be such that the moment you looked at the press photos and covers, you could hear this big, sad and emotional ballad in your head.
We went with a slightly more vintage and cinematic look and feel, playing with lights and contrast which sits in line with the music video, which is pretty cinematic and with elements of vintage films that give it a timeless feel.
Good ballads are often classic and timeless, so visually I wanted it to reflect that too.
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Are you releasing an EP soon? How about singing in English?
I’m working on more songs at the moment and will hopefully be releasing an album some time next year! I started out writing in English and have a treasure trove of songs I’ve written since then that I would like to release eventually.
So while I continue to explore and navigate my way around Mandopop, I’m also looking to keep writing and singing in English cause that’s where my true roots are at.
Still craving for more content after reading about songwriter and singer Marcus Lee and his new single Without Reason?? Click here to catch up with our October 2020 issue!
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