SPARE a thought, please, for the unfortunate pop torch singer Lana Del Ray.
OK, she's unfeasibly attractive (an advantage she undoubtedly holds over this benighted scribe).
Yes, she's successful and famous (score two and three to Ms Del Ray). Her first album, Born to Die, was one of the sensations of 2012.
But the poor lass has lost her way. More than that, she's lost her muse. (At last, some common ground.)
The California-based singer has told Nylon magazine she doesn't know if she will be able to come up with a follow-up LP.
"When people ask me about it, I just have to be honest - I really don't know," she said. "I don't want to say: 'Yeah, definitely - the next one's better than this one,' because I don't really hear a next one. My muse is very fickle. She only comes to me sometimes, which is annoying."
She added that part of the problem is that since becoming famous it's been hard to find material for her songs. "It's harder to be an observer when people are watching you," she said. "You have to go further inside because the outside world becomes a harder place to draw from."
I'm beginning to think that the lady doth protest too much. What's to stop her donning a false beard and whiskers - perhaps better make that a ginger wig and sunglasses - and hanging about street corners, where she can pick up all the inspiration she likes, blissfully unrecognised?
Readers of this newspaper will be aware that Ms Del Ray is a regular visitor to Glasgow - her boyfriend is Kassidy guitarist Barrie-James O'Neill. Could there be a city anywhere that provides such rich pickings for songwriters? OK, I'll give you Paris. New York, New York at a pinch. But, still, the point stands.
Heck, even Abba fell under its spell - witness the famous line in Super Trouper. And could Will Fyfe - a Dundonian, remember - ever have written I Belong To Edinburgh?
There have been a few misses, of course. I Left My Heart in Auchenshuggle sadly failed to make it past the demo tapes. But Nutcase City Limits nearly made it.
Sadly, London Road Calling failed to chart, as did We Built This City (On Ginger And Bacon Rolls), Anniesland's Song, Fog on Carntyne, Drumchapel of Love and, perhaps most famously, God Save The Queenslie.
Ach, you know what, Lana? You've had your chance. Pass the wig, hand me the glasses, I feel a song coming on.
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