Every writer makes a zillion different choices. Explore the impact of that decision-making with the kaleidoscopic Dua Lipa!

ACTIVITY 1

Watch the ‘Houdini’ video and read the lyrics. What poetic devices has Dua Lipa employed to great effect? Come up with some ideas. If you are starting this class having already completed the EtHeL cAiN, NoAh GuNdErSeN & TeeNaGe PoEtRy and GoD & gLaSgOw: a LeSSoN iN aSSoNaNcE lessons, then think back to the devices discussed in those sessions.

Dua Lipa, ‘Houdini’

I come and I go
Tell me all the ways you need me
I’m not here for long
Catch me or I go Houdini

I come and I go
Prove you got the right to please me
Everybody knows
Catch me or I go Houdini

Time is passin’ like a solar eclipse
S
ee you watchin’ and you blow me a kiss
It’s your moment, baby, don’t let it slip
Come in closer, are you readin’ my lips?

They say I come and I go
Tell me all the ways you need me
I’m not here for long
Catch me or I go Houdini

I come and I go
Prove you got the right to please me
Everybody knows
Catch me or I go Houdini

If you’re good enough, you’ll find a way
Maybe you could cause a girl to change (her ways)
Do you think about it night and day?
Maybe you could be the one to make me stay

Everything you say is soundin’ so sweet (ah-ah)
But do you practise everything that you preach? (Ah-ah)
I need something that’ll make me believe (ah-ah)
If you got it, baby, give it to me

They say I come and I go
Tell me all the ways you need me
I’m not here for long
Catch me or I go Houdini

I come and I go (I come and I go)
Prove you got the right to please me
Everybody knows (I’m not here for long)
Catch me or I go Houdini

If you’re good enough, you’ll find a way
Maybe you could cause a girl to change (her ways)
Do you think about it night and day?
Maybe you could be the one to make me stay

I come and I go
Tell me all the ways you need me (ooh)
I’m not here for long
Catch me or I go Houdini

I come and I go (I come and I go)
Prove you got the right to please me
Everybody knows (I’m not here for long)
Catch me or I go Houdini

Houdini (ah)
Catch me or I go Houdini

ACTIVITY 2

Watch the interview below.

Such an interesting interview with Dua. Watch the first 4 minutes (or all of it!). She talks about context and the need for dancing being exaggerated by covid; she explores her use of repetition – and also the need for something positive to say. There are other interesting insights too, including the idea of the post-chorus as an explanation.

ACTIVITY 3

Write your own poem with the ambition of incorporating a positive message that you would happily come back to every day. This may be a version of the poem you started in the EtHeL cAiN, NoAh GuNdErSeN & TeeNaGe PoEtRy session but it could be something brand new. Do also think about using those soft tones that Dua Lipa uses, just as Theresa Jarvis does, in an effort to be gentle with herself.

And don’t forget that writing poetry is a little bit like escaping from locked chains. Using your most carefully chosen words and all the emotional power you can summon, you can fight your way through the dark feelings that sometimes land in your life, beyond the boundaries the world might try to place in your way and past any problems that might threaten, at moments, to be too much. Writing a poem can feel as cathartic as dancing like a lunatic 🙂