Lights: 5 songs that changed my life
'I learned the brass tacks of how to use metaphor and poetry to make a song come to life'
Ahead of her cross-Canada tour starting at the end of June, CBC Music caught up with electro-pop singer Lights to get a breakdown of five songs that shaped her. In the video, Lights shared key moments in her musical and self-discovery, from early musical awakenings at the age of 11 thanks to U2 to lessons on songwriting she took away from studying Joni Mitchell's lyrics.
"Music is power, it's a dark art," she says, "and to be able to harness that and create something that can change peoples' moods, that's magical."
Learning to be a "badass," to inspire people through song and to write timeless music are all lessons that these five songs taught her, and that were at the front of her mind while writing her latest album, Pep.
Watch the video above for a deep dive into Lights's artistic influences and to find out which song is "the embodiment of everything I'm trying to achieve on [Pep]."