Raye On Having Songbooks Stolen: ‘When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade’
Raye has spoken to Variety about the experience of having her songbooks stolen in a new interview.
Back in October, the singer-songwriter had her car stolen. In the vehicle were the original songbooks for her celebrated debut album, My 21st Century Blues, as well as initial ideas and notes for three or four songs she had finished writing for her highly anticipated second album.
“I had a lot of brilliant poems and titles and phrases and words,” Raye said. “I was starting to explore the idea of writing the lyrics to melodies. Melodies are an abundant thing you can always play with, but the lyrics are different — they’re so important.”
“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” she went on. “Losing and winning and trying and failing only to try again, it’s a part of life. And then maybe by a miracle, you get to succeed every now and then. I will relentlessly pursue creating music that I love. And now I get to go away for as long as I want and write a second fucking album.”
Raye went on to speak out about the rights of songwriters, “Music is one of the biggest and most present saving graces. You can revive a dead and miserable room with a song, and the people creating those songs — the silent people who no one knows about — need to be protected. There are less gatekeepers in the industry now than ever, and I really believe that everyone involved in the creative process of making a song should receive a reward for that.”
Raye recently announced her biggest-ever show, a headline performance at London’s All Points East next summer. The star will play the Victoria Park festival on 23 August 2025. It was also announced last week that she is nominated for Best Female Act and Video Of The Year (Genesis) at next year’s MOBO Awards.