Long, strange titles: the case of «Mitad Venezuela, mitad Pakistán»

Some people say a song title has to be short. One word, two at most. Something that fits on a T-shirt and can be shouted at a gig. There's logic to it, and plenty of pop's biggest hits follow the rule. But I have a weakness for long, strange titles, the kind that make you stop and read them twice. And among mine there's one that's practically a manifesto for that weakness: «Mitad Venezuela, mitad Pakistán» (Half Venezuela, half Pakistan).

I'm not going to tell you what the song is about. I'd rather talk about what the title does before a single note plays, which is what interests me most about it.

Two countries that never touch

The first thing it causes is a little geographical confusion. Venezuela and Pakistan share no border, no language, no ocean, nothing much that springs to mind. They sit at opposite ends of the map. Joining them with a comma is like taking two pieces from different jigsaws and saying they fit.

And yet the phrase sounds natural. "Half this, half that" is a very ordinary way to describe someone. We use it for mixed families, odd accents, dogs of doubtful pedigree. The title takes that homely formula and fills it with two countries nobody would expect to see side by side. The result is a person you haven't met yet but are already curious about.

That's what I want from a title: to make someone appear.

It could be something else, of course. Maybe it isn't about a person but about a love split in two, someone whose heart is shared between two places, or between two people who live very far apart. Or a state of mind, a day when you feel you're from two places at once and from neither completely. The title doesn't decide for you. It hands you the map and lets you choose the route, and that strikes me as a gift to the listener.

I live in Madrid, and in Madrid that phrase isn't as odd as it seems. On a single street you hear five different accents. There are people with a father from one place and a mother from another, people born here with surnames from over there, people with one country's face and another country's sense of humour. The city is full of halves that found each other.

When I read the title I don't see some exotic oddity. I see someone who could be sitting opposite me on the metro. And I like that, because pop in Spanish sometimes describes a very uniform world, as if we all had the same grandparents.

I also think about the people listening in Latin America, who are a big part of my audience. For someone in Caracas, Venezuela isn't a curious detail; it's home. Its turning up in the title of a queer pop song made in Madrid, next to a country so far away, already says something. That you can be from lots of places at once. That identity doesn't come in a single package.

Why long

A long title is a commitment. It can't hide. If a song's title is one word, that word can be filled with anything. If it's a whole phrase, the phrase is already saying something specific, and the song has to live up to it.

That commitment helps me write. It forces me to be specific. I can't do a generic love song when the title has already set out two countries and an exact split down the middle. I have to go all the way there.

There's another, more practical reason. With 273 singles released in two years, one-word titles start blurring into each other. A long, strange title is hard to forget. Someone who hears it once remembers it the next day even if they remember nothing else about the song. On my new website, mikesaintlouis.com, there's an A-to-Z lyrics section and a search box. That's where you really see which titles get found first time and which don't. The strange ones win.

The risk of a strange title

I don't want to pretend it's all upside. A very strange title can put people off. Some read it and think it's a joke that's too private, the kind only the people at that dinner would get. Others fear it's a song about politics or geography and walk on by.

And there's a more delicate risk: that naming countries could be taken as reducing a person to where they come from. I've thought about that, and I don't have an entirely settled answer. I think "half and half" works the other way: instead of putting someone in a box, it gives them two, and in giving them two it's already saying one isn't enough. But I understand that someone might read it differently. Which is exactly why I won't explain any more than the title says on its own.

The tradition of the strange

Pop, copla and popular song in general have a long history of outlandish titles. Titles that are almost a plot, that name cities, streets, food. I feel at home in that tradition. I like to think that someone, many years from now, will come across the song in a list and sit there staring at the title without understanding a thing, and that not understanding will make them press play.

In the end, that's what a title is for. Not to sum up. To open the door.

Its lyrics and its music video are waiting for you at mikesaintlouis.com.