In a response to this series of blogs, I was asked to write something about songwriting, the process, the inspiration etc. So, ever grateful for the attention, here goes.
How many times have you read an interview with some celebrated songwriter and the subject is asked how s/he writes. After a period of due modesty, out come those bloodcurdling words, 'I don't know where they come from, the songs just flow through me'! Instantly, you want to inflict lasting, disfiguring damage. 'Yeah right! You are just a conduit for the muse! The music of the spheres is flowing through you like electricity through a lightning rod!' Like we all wake up with a Yesterday tripping from our fingers.
The thing is that if you do fancy yourself as a songwriter and spend long hours sitting with guitar/piano and note pad hoping for something to coalesce, you do - if you are lucky - find yourself having those occasional 'what the hell just happened?' moments. Then you realise that these, all but inarticulate, song-smiths you have been cursing actually have a small point. That isn't the entire story of course, but it covers a large and thrilling part.
I presume that there are as many different approaches to songwriting as there are songwriters, so for it's worth here is my own contribution.
As mentioned in a previous blog, I used to write lyrics while notionally at work in a solicitor's office, so that I would have something to croon when Charlie and I sat down in our version of Lennon/McCartney's nose-to-nose sessions. If you are not prepared for these times, you find the band champing at the bit to get their teeth into their latest melodic breakthrough and all you have to sing over it is something mind-numbingly banal, like a shopping list. Plus I get inspiration (sorry! that word again. I didn't mean to) when I am alone and have some peace. I still tend to write in this way though, as a teacher, I am at everyone's beck and call, so, at strategic times of the academic year, I say 'thank god for exams!' Two hours when you are not only allowed but obliged to sit motionless and stare into space for 2+ hours. I used to bask in two hours of uninterrupted sex fantasies featuring various morsels of the concupiscent flesh I was supposed to be invigilating. Now I find my mind roaming over the more esoteric and intriguing byways of human desire and thinking about the many ways in people can start, participate in or fuck up their relationships. On a good day I can come out with 3 sets of lyrics. They're not finished - after all they are just words - but it's something to hang the music on - or vice versa. I always have a rhythm or maybe even a melody for these but I instantly forget it - I don't even try to remember them. After they are typed up and put into my pending book, they wait until the time is right and something can be made of them.
Sitting with my guitar is when the work really starts and when, on a good day, some kind iof magic can happen. I used to try to force this or bring ideas to the guitar and sometimes the latter still happens. But what I like about this part is that you can let random events dictate the course of the song and take it out of your hands. Here is where those conduit-for-the-muse illusions start. Mostly, it's a question of trying to avoid my own cliches and surprise myself. The more songs you write, the more difficult this becomes, I should imagine. Sometimes it's easier than others. It's just a matter of bashing around on the fretboard, letting my fingers fall where they will until something interesting comes along.
Sometimes I struggle to avoid my own tried and trusty formulae, banging round the fourths, majors to relative minors etc and sometimes it's just a question of managing to hear something familiar in a new way or to give it an unexpected twist. I will sometimes start with a hideously difficult chord and find a melody to fit it and see where it takes me. Another pet method is to throw chords with common notes in and work them until they form an interesting structure with a kind of drone. Yet another way is to take a well-known chord sequence and play around with it until it sounds novel. The more chords you know the easier and more interesting it becomes. And you have to let yourself become suggestible and be prepared to let the melody and chords take you where they will.
Once you have some kind of chord sequence, with melody attached, it becomes a question of sifting through the lyric book to find something which goes with it. It could be a phrase that fits, or a rhythmic nuance and a mood that suits the melody. Almost anything, in fact. At this point, I discover just how usable my lyrics are. They usually invariably need tweaking, occasionally de- or reconstructing. but if you are lucky, you end up with something. I find that I take a lot of care over the words but let happenstance guide the music. Every Shade of Blue and But I'll Miss You More both happened that way.
I used to have a manic compulsion to try to finish the entire song at one sitting and sometimes it still happens. But nowadays I often don't even pretend to and I don't worry if the chorus or the bridge is unfinished. When I'm in a different mood, I will bring another kind of flavour to the song. It's all about trying to catch myself out and let chance take a role. To that extent, it is possible to feel that you are just an instrument and if you are very lucky you can surprise yourself.
On this note, the concept of finished becomes a relative thing. Sometimes they are never finished - it becomes a case of 'this is how I will do it for now'. The when you have been playing it a certain way for sometime, you get bored and find something better. Keeping things fresh is the key to it all really. Starting with a title, working from an unlikely situation, trying to illustrate a maxim or platitude. It helps to keep a playful quality to it all and treat it as a game to amuse yourself.
So that's it for now. My recommendation to aspiring songwriters: find a school in need of invigilators for exams and hunker down for the duration while letting your imagination wander. I suppose prison would do almost as well......
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