Aah Song

Album: The Wonderground (2003)
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Songfacts®:

  • Boy Meets Girl are George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, who are famous for their hit "Waiting For A Star To Fall" and for the songs they wrote for Whitney Houston: "How Will I Know" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)." They were married thoughtout the '90s and broke up around 2000. The turmoil and resolution of their relationship was the basis for this album as they continued to work together despite their breakup. George and Shannon spoke with us about this song:

    Shannon: "One of the hallmarks of that for me was realizing that once you set your mind to something, that it's actually already in your hands, so that was, 'The bells are ringing, I've already won.' It's just once you decide what it is you want, some of that storm and drain of the past is already over, because you've already set your intention on something else, and in doing that, you're taking action on it. It becomes the present, what you're doing now. I couldn't deal with the past by continually bringing it up and trying to outrun it. I really had to just set myself on another path."

    George: "The shoes are new that you're putting on, and these are comfortable, these are good shoes."

    Shannon: "The other thing is we were going through some therapy at the time for a while, and I think that therapy is very interesting, an interesting discussion and conversation, and can be helpful. And yet in another way it doesn't really change things. It's just your understanding, that understanding does not necessarily lead to change. What really leads to change is the action of it, of setting your mind in a different way. And once you do that, that's really the power. And so that song was really the discovery of that for me."

    George: "Really the whole album is a fragile understanding of where we were. It was all new as we were going through it. I still remember a lot of vivid images of that whole project. To do the background vocals on "The Aah Song," that actual vowel sound, if you sing that and you have emotion in you, to be open-throated like that, it brings up emotion. It was a catharsis for us, and hopefully along the way maybe one or five people that find a nugget of joy and meaning in there, too. It's funny, Boy Meets Girl, we get known for our bright songs like "Waiting For a Star To Fall," and yet there are all these other facets." (Thanks to George and Shannon for speaking with us about this song. Check out the Boy Meets Girl website at www.boymeetsgirlmusic.com.)

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