Singled Out: Digney Fignus' The Emperor Wears No Clothes

Digney Fignus just released his song "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" as the first single to his forthcoming album, and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

I have never shied away from controversy. From my punk days navigating the gritty Boston music scene to my early success on MTV and Columbia records I have never stopped writing and recording. "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" is the first single and video coming off my latest CD: _Black and Blue - The Brick Hill Sessions._

As a songwriter you never know when inspiration is going to hit. Sometimes it's like a flash and sometimes it takes years to eventually coalesce into something tangible. "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" was somewhere in between. I'd been experimenting with some klezmer rhythms and minor chords so I had a framework that I was looking to fill in with lyrics. When I reach this stage, I'll usually play the basic chord pattern over and over, mumbling along until some word or phrase pops into my head, and starts to tell me what the song is about (yeah, I know that's a little weird). This time, what popped into my head was an old story my Grandmother had read to me when I was a kid, "The Emperor's New Clothes." It's the story of group of people who ignored an obvious truth out of fear to speak out against someone powerful. Once I understood the song was going to be about the "Emperor" I was off and running.

A little bell goes off in my head when that happens, and then the lyric starts going through my mind on a loop, picking up words here and there, eventually putting together lines and verses. The headlines of the day will often creep into the song at this point, and were a big part of the process for "The Emperor Wears No Clothes."

I've never set out to write "protest" songs, but sometimes it's the responsibility of the writer to hold up a mirror to what's happening around them. Nobody can deny we have been going through troubling times, and the songs in _Black and Blue_ talk about some of that in stark detail. It's only fitting that the first single released off this CD deals with the biggest problem we have right now head on.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

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