Free Writing About Song-Writing
I begin to doubt myself as a song-writer when I have such large gaps in time between songs. I begin to feel that if I really were a song-writer I'd be able to sit down and write a song any time. Not necessarily a good song, but a passing song. A song.
But I cannot (if only because I will not let myself write a bad song) no matter how hard I try, or how much I don't push it for weeks at a time. My friend Jill told me I should be happy to write a song at all, and that I always say I can't and then I go ahead and do it anyway. And that might be true, but it certainly doesn't feel like it.
I am not exactly head over heels in love with the last song I wrote "Indian Summer" the chorus is good, but the verses kill me - though the bridge is kind of strong musically (despite a weird key change back to the main part of the song that I can never quite make work). I hardly consider that a song since the second verse is such crap I can barely get myself to sing it anymore. It is more like a 3/4ths song.
Before that was "Break Up At A Party (Just Leave)" - Christ, do I hate naming songs sometimes - and the parenthesis thing seems so pretentious - but I don't know sometimes it is necessary - but then again, sometimes it is not, because the phrase "the problem of being human" is never said in my song "The Problem of Being Human", and I did not entitle it "The Problem of Being Human (Let Me Down)" - which the title of the afore-mentioned song would have you think it would. . . There is no rhyme or reason for me with these things. It is just sometimes it feels right.
Anyway, that song is strong, but the kind of thing I want to produce full blown with a band in a studio and awful noisy - so while I play it on my acoustic - it is not quite wholly satisfying.
Before that was "Shake My Life Up" - which is okay - but it is really hard to sing.
Before that the gap is so long I don't want to even contemplate it.
So instead, I have been learning and figuring out lots of other people's songs.
Today was "Many Rivers to Cross" by Jimmy Cliff.
Yesterday was "Small Black Box" by Michael Penn.
Hoping I can mine other people's progressions for directions I have not thought of yet, while I can turn my observant eye on my life and find some things to write about. Most often my songs are direct extensions of events in my life - of people in my life, in particular - but ideas gleaned from books and overheard conversation can make their way into songs, as well - but I want to try to stop taking such a passive role in letting songs come to me and seeing if I might seek some out. Ugh. It seems impossible for where I sit.
It is doomed to fail. About once a year I make the same decision and try the same old tricks and try to expand my song-writing and every year songs just come in dribs and drabs and then the rare gush of dozen songs in a row -and then there is drought - like famed drought of mid-1998 til may 2001. Yeesh, the idea of not having written a song in three years is fucking frightening. How did I survive that? I mean, I know I was hardly ever playing in that time, and come to think of it, how did I survive that? Hardly a day goes by that I don't play at least a half-hour, and give me a Sunday morning to play you some songs and I will go two hours or more. Sure, this is a far cry from college days when I'd play for hours every day, the first semester with Zooey almost every day - just jamming - just singing - just expressing. It was wild. I probably grew the most musically in that time. I think I wrote something like 35 or 40 songs that year alone. Of course, most of those are gone never to be recovered and of that at least 92% was crap - but I had the time to do it. It is a little harder these days.
The walls of my apartment building are pretty thin so I often feel self-conscious while I am playing - like my neighbors can all hear me -and that makes it difficult to really let go and explore and sound bad if I have to.
The last place had a bit of that element to it.
Really, the shittiest apartment I had, the basement 1 1/2 room place of two years ago was the most ideal. I could play late into the night as loudly as I wanted and no one heard anything because my landlords' bedroom was two floor above me - no one slept on the first floor. That meant at 3 am, if I felt inspired I could play and sing to my heart's content.
But that was the only good thing about that place - Ah, the choices and compromises we make as we get older. If only I could have my own house and I could play any time - but how could I ever hope to afford a real house in New York City? How could I ever live anywhere but Brooklyn again? I am rooted here.
There could be a song in that.
But I cannot (if only because I will not let myself write a bad song) no matter how hard I try, or how much I don't push it for weeks at a time. My friend Jill told me I should be happy to write a song at all, and that I always say I can't and then I go ahead and do it anyway. And that might be true, but it certainly doesn't feel like it.
I am not exactly head over heels in love with the last song I wrote "Indian Summer" the chorus is good, but the verses kill me - though the bridge is kind of strong musically (despite a weird key change back to the main part of the song that I can never quite make work). I hardly consider that a song since the second verse is such crap I can barely get myself to sing it anymore. It is more like a 3/4ths song.
Before that was "Break Up At A Party (Just Leave)" - Christ, do I hate naming songs sometimes - and the parenthesis thing seems so pretentious - but I don't know sometimes it is necessary - but then again, sometimes it is not, because the phrase "the problem of being human" is never said in my song "The Problem of Being Human", and I did not entitle it "The Problem of Being Human (Let Me Down)" - which the title of the afore-mentioned song would have you think it would. . . There is no rhyme or reason for me with these things. It is just sometimes it feels right.
Anyway, that song is strong, but the kind of thing I want to produce full blown with a band in a studio and awful noisy - so while I play it on my acoustic - it is not quite wholly satisfying.
Before that was "Shake My Life Up" - which is okay - but it is really hard to sing.
Before that the gap is so long I don't want to even contemplate it.
So instead, I have been learning and figuring out lots of other people's songs.
Today was "Many Rivers to Cross" by Jimmy Cliff.
Yesterday was "Small Black Box" by Michael Penn.
Hoping I can mine other people's progressions for directions I have not thought of yet, while I can turn my observant eye on my life and find some things to write about. Most often my songs are direct extensions of events in my life - of people in my life, in particular - but ideas gleaned from books and overheard conversation can make their way into songs, as well - but I want to try to stop taking such a passive role in letting songs come to me and seeing if I might seek some out. Ugh. It seems impossible for where I sit.
It is doomed to fail. About once a year I make the same decision and try the same old tricks and try to expand my song-writing and every year songs just come in dribs and drabs and then the rare gush of dozen songs in a row -and then there is drought - like famed drought of mid-1998 til may 2001. Yeesh, the idea of not having written a song in three years is fucking frightening. How did I survive that? I mean, I know I was hardly ever playing in that time, and come to think of it, how did I survive that? Hardly a day goes by that I don't play at least a half-hour, and give me a Sunday morning to play you some songs and I will go two hours or more. Sure, this is a far cry from college days when I'd play for hours every day, the first semester with Zooey almost every day - just jamming - just singing - just expressing. It was wild. I probably grew the most musically in that time. I think I wrote something like 35 or 40 songs that year alone. Of course, most of those are gone never to be recovered and of that at least 92% was crap - but I had the time to do it. It is a little harder these days.
The walls of my apartment building are pretty thin so I often feel self-conscious while I am playing - like my neighbors can all hear me -and that makes it difficult to really let go and explore and sound bad if I have to.
The last place had a bit of that element to it.
Really, the shittiest apartment I had, the basement 1 1/2 room place of two years ago was the most ideal. I could play late into the night as loudly as I wanted and no one heard anything because my landlords' bedroom was two floor above me - no one slept on the first floor. That meant at 3 am, if I felt inspired I could play and sing to my heart's content.
But that was the only good thing about that place - Ah, the choices and compromises we make as we get older. If only I could have my own house and I could play any time - but how could I ever hope to afford a real house in New York City? How could I ever live anywhere but Brooklyn again? I am rooted here.
There could be a song in that.