Name: Melike Şahin
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: Turkish
Current release: Melike Şahin's two latest singles, "Canın Beni Çekti" and "Ortak" are out via Gülbaba and Day Dreamer.
Recommendations: Leonora Carrington - Self Portrait; Marguerite Duras - Writing

If you enjoyed this Melike Şahin interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her on Instagram, Facebook, and tiktok.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

I remember myself writing a lullaby for my sister when I was a child. I guess it has always been there for me. I find writing songs a magical thing that enables me to express my emotions under the surface.

Because of  my dad’s love of Turkish folk, we always listened to “türkü”s at home. Sabahat Akkiraz’s angelic voice was perhaps my first seed to sing.



It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

I can relate.

I write music when my heart aches, when there are no words to say. Then my art embraces me and I feel the cure.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

Interestingly, I don’t find music that inspiring when it comes to writing a song. Literature is for me a much stronger push.

When a word inspires me when I read, if I love the word so deeply, a new theme comes into my mind immediately and I can’t stop myself writing a new piece.  

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

When I listen to a song for the first time I always focus on the lyrics, the sound comes second. I’m a lyric enthusiast and what moves me in the song is the artist’s ability to explain my heart, as if they know what I feel exactly. Sometimes it is a sentence, sometimes a chorus as a whole. If I see the magic I am there till the end of time, listening to the very same song on loop, forever.

When I recall my early influences I see Sezen Aksu’s beautiful album called Işık Doğudan Yükselir. Each and every song on this album made me who I am today. I was 7 when I first listened to it.



I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

Such a brilliant but difficult question. Surely we can consider music as a form of poetry. Sometimes  a photograph does the same to a person, it amazes you profoundly, art happens, there is no escape.

The melody of a poem is re-written by the person who reads it. Music gives them all to us, on the other hand. It offers you a completely different journey through the deepest forests of your heart.

The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it?

Words have their own melodies and weight. When we form sentences it gets heavier.

I always pay attention to the balance between the word and its room in my song. When they both flow in coherence I feel satisfied. When they don’t, the song stays unfinished till the magic wand arrives.

When working on music, when do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

It depends actually. Sometimes music and lyrics emerge at the same time.

Sometimes, even a quote from a novel can take you to songwriting.

Do you feel like the music triggers specific words inside you? Or is more of a feeling or a memory? Would you say there is instantly an entire idea in front of you or does the story grow as you keep listening to the music?

Mostly it triggers a feeling. Sometimes a memory. Story grows as you listen to the song throughout the years. People change, life changes.

Listening to the same song at different times, you see how you’ve changed. That feeling or memory which has occupied your heart in your first meeting, has changed, too. It feels really amazing for me when I experience that.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

It needs to sound good and right at the very same time. Because it needs to sound like me. What is good or right comes from my own vision of course and I enjoy the softness, both in singing and writing. The ability to shout without shouting.

This is the case for singing other artist’s songs too. I want to put my own identity in them, gentle yet powerful.