the rescue » Sommer Leigh

Check out my posts over at Wicked & Tricksy!

Today: Wild Things – Defining and Writing YA Fiction
Last week: Something Wicked Blogfest June 27-July 1st
Week before that: The Science of Villains

Have I ever told you guys about Tyler Ward? I don’t think I have, which is just wrong of me because I shouldn’t be keeping awesome to myself. That’s just rude. We’re friends right? Friends don’t let friends listen to crappy music.

Tyler Ward is a musician who has made a stomping-hot-splash on YouTube for doing covers of songs that are only kind of ok by their original artist but become ridiculously melt-your-ears-and-heart amazing in Tyler’s talented hands. (Also, he’s hot. Like smokin’ hot. *fans self*)

I discovered him forever ago when he did a cover to Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” which is a terrible song and video when done by Katy (sorry Katy) but became the anthem for all great YA romances when Tyler redid it. Needless to say, I have a lot of Tyler Ward songs on my iPod, and this is one I’ve listened to the most often.

It just about makes you melt in the knees, which is the antithesis of my high school romance experience which had very little knee melting and a lot of awkwardness and gum chewing, but what’s great fiction if we can’t make it dreamy like it should be instead of embarrassing like it is?

Several months ago he did a cover of Katy Perry’s “E.T.” I listened to it while I was cleaning and only sort of noticed it then (I may have also been vacuuming, a bad chore to do when listening to new music) so I didn’t really pay it any attention until the next day in the car on the way to work. My husband was driving and my eyes were closed and WHOOSH, there I went, swallowed up in images and characters and ideas built on the foundation of a single song. I listened to it at least five times on the way to work that day and I kept it on repeat on my iPod while I worked all morning. By 6pm that night I’d written the first rough outline for the as of yet Untitled Superhero YA Novel. True story.

Tyler’s voice is smooth like buttah and sweet like chocolate and yet he’s silly and clever and goofy and talented and it is hard not to be both inspired and completely in awe of that. He does covers of a lot of songs I wouldn’t have given a second chance to, from pop to hip hop to country and I love them all. He has dragged me hypnotized into new music possibilities I had been far too biased and music snobby to ever consider on my own. I am enamored and grateful to him. I am sure I am not his only biggest fan.

More covers I love:

He doesn’t just do covers either. He has some originals he performs with his crew, all of whom are equally talented and lovely.

The Rescue – This song is great, but it’s the video that kills me inside. The video is about our own deepest fears and worries – the things we feel we need rescued from. The messages all these strangers, the YouTubers, are sending during this video are heartbreaking and heartwarming and makes you really think about your own biggest fears in a way we often can’t – we aren’t the only one with their burden. There are lots of people out there who need solace and relief from the hardest days of our lives. It makes me think about the WSJ article and how so many readers came out to say “We need these dark themes because life is sometimes too hard to withstand alone.” Sharing the burden and coping together is a magical and powerful solution. I think this song is one of the most beautiful I’ve had the pleasure of finding.