Of Songwriting

Oscar Hammerstein not so famously quipped that there is no such thing as inspiration. Only hard work.

He was kind of an ass.

I prefer Leonard Cohen's answer when asked if he sweated over the good lines.

"Only before and after. The good ones just appear." he said

Then there's my dad's quip: "I hate writing, but I love having written."

I'm not sure if he stole that one, but if he did, I'm better off not knowing.

There's the classic story of Archimedes being forced to find a method of distinguishing real gold from the fake stuff. He went mad trying to come up with something, until his wife told him to go take a bath.

As legend has it, he noticed that his body displaced a certain amount of water in the warm tub. Then the idea hit him!

There is a mathematical ratio between weight and volume.

Only materials made up of the same stuff will have the same ratio.

Therefore anything that doesn't have the same ratio as real gold must be the fake stuff.

(Warning: This next sentence may contain Adult Nudity.)

"Eureka" he screamed. And then ran naked through the streets.

That's right . . . naked.

Now Aronofsky fans will remember this little allegory, because when the story was told, the main character says "Yeah, Yeah, I got it. Taking a break from a problem will lead to the answer"

Which is followed by his mentor who says "NO! The story tells you that you need a woman to give you perspective."

Wierd movie, great scene.

So I told you these two stories in order to tell you this one.

Since I've been puttering about the house, I've been having Calvin play the piano. He will sit next to me and ask me to play numbers.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1

or as you might now it,

Do-Re-Me-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do

As you can imagine, this got real irritating, real quick.

Then I started mixing it up.

1-2-3-2-1

and then

1-3-5

and then

1-3-4-5 (Oh, when the saints)

and then just for giggles,

1-1-5-5-6-6-5--4-4-3-3-2-2-1--

Or Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are

or A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-Lmno-P

Again, this got really irritatinger, really quicker.

But he can play it. And loves to play it. Over, and Over.

And over. I was almost to the point where I kind of wanted him to knock it off. To let me pace about the house with some semblance of silence. Or at least without twinkle haunting me.

Then one day, as I was laying on the bed, half heartedly moping. My wife came in from the bathroom.

"How does my hair look?" She asked.

As she said this I could hear Calvin at the piano playing two notes together. First 1 & 3. Then 1&5. Then variations where he kept the beat going on 1 and would play other notes on alternate beats. 1&3&1&4&1&5.

"Honey, listen, he's experimenting with basic harmony!"

"Uh-huh, how does my hair look?"

I barked at my wife. "Did you hear what I said? I didn't teach him how to do that! He's three an a half! That's when most kids are still banging on the keys like it was an ivory "whack a mole" toy and he's trying to work out which notes sound best together."

My overzealous imagination, clearly without moment's notice, shot me down the vicarious path of baby genius. I might fail to write another note, but this is a momentous occasion. All my puttering, all my depressed pacing, all my tossing and turning hasn't resulted in a damn thing but this! My son, oh yes, MY SON is going to have the skill of Mozart, with the temperance of Bach, the rock star prowess of Metalica with the down home earthiness of John Denver.

He could never get in an airplane.

But just as Icarus needed the sun to burn him out of the heavens, sometimes husbands need their wives to get them back to work.

"Did you hear me?" I asked

"I heard you" She said. And then she spoke slower and more deliberate.

"How . . . does . . . my . . . hair . . . look?"

We Can Be Invincible

In the car I have the radio cranked.

So what if its NPR?

But the news started to get a little redundant, even for NPR, so I turned the radio over to a music station.

I do this rarely because A) If I listen to music too much during the writing process, I tend to extract melody lines that aren't really mine, B) I hate commercials and C) Talk radio is slowly giving the sixteen year old an ulcer.

That just makes me laugh.

But low and behold the moment I switch to my favorite rock station, there she is.

Pat Benatar.

I'm sorry . . .

THE Pat Benatar.

That's right.

And she's runnin with the shadow of the night.

Oh, yeah.

My volume knob goes up to 36 before the speakers begin to bleed.

Take that! Nigel Tufnel.

However, the chorus begins to repeat itself over and over.

Not in the usual pop song way, we're talking 8 or nine times. And then, instead of the Fender Strat power chord and Fatty compressed drums kicking in, there's this Casio style beat box followed by sample bars from other songs.

A remix?

Who the hell remixes Pat Benatar?

Doesn't this person understand that there's no conceivable way to improve upon the pop rock goddess perfection that is Pat Benatar?

Now my wife would argue that I'm a total ass and that clearly Joan Jett deserves the rock goddess mantel.

But Joan Jett doesn't have the boobs to shimmy in a pink prom dress.

My best friend Jeremy would vote for Jane Weidlin. Cute, but unfortunately lost in Belinda's ever growing shadow.

Dad might argue for Janis. (he's old, p.s. Happy birthday Dad)

Calvin would say Cat Stevens. (still having trouble with his pronouns.)

The sixteen year old would most audaciously vote for Rhianna. But he prefers his singers to be off key. However, my sixteen year old self would have probably put in a good word for Tiffany.

I take no responsibility for anything I did before I was thirty.

So anyway, I was so muddled by this bad remix of Pat that I told a co-worker I was going to have to dig through my old CD's so I could hear the right version and get this awful remix out of my head.

Then I told the truth and said I was going to have to find it on my ipod.

He told me it was probably going to be in the "Most Played" file.

yes I said, it probably will be.

So I'm driving home.

"Shadow of the Night" cranked to 35. And when it stopped, I put it on again.

And then I let the rest of Pat's greatest hits continue on.

And then I came to a red light.

Windows rolled down.

"We Belong" cranked to 35.

I made the mistake of looking to my left.

A grizzled former contractor in a beat up old truck staring at me like I was one of those hippies.

Then he nodded his head to the beat and turned back to look at the light.

Because really . . .

If you haven't rock out to Pat Benatar, with the windows rolled down,

You're either a communist,

or my mother.

the Momentum Method

So it's no use denying it now.

I'm in a total slump.

this "impinged" nerve in my back has totally proved that Newtonian physics are fully applicable in the magical world of creative endeavors. Inspiration in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by a greater or equal force.

I was on a six month high. Gettin it done, as it were. But when I came to an abrupt physical halt, everything, including my desire to break every songwriting law I know, shut done like the landing lights when Johnny pulled the plug.

The tower? The tower? Rapunzel, Rapunzel.

But, as I stated much earlier on in this narrative, this ain't about writer's block. It's about method.

So yeah, I haven't been writing. I haven't been performing. I haven't been out partying or curling up in a ball and crying myself to sleep.

I have been banging away at every little idea that cropped into my head. For better or worse, I've been working without producing anything.

So yeah, I'm in a slump.

But there's a little secret I know.

Passed down from oral histories, Rolling Stone interviews, and parental guidance.

First, clean your room. Eat some fruit. Go for a run. Pick up another instrument. Pick up another art form. Be nice to your wife. Cook an amazing meal. Let it go. Feel human again.

I think what I'm doing is a good idea. I think it will produce some of my best work yet and here's how I know.

Years ago, I was in a little musical.

It was my first lead role.

I thought my excrement existed without odor.

During a matinee, one of my new acting coaches was in the audience. I wanted to impress the hell out of him. Make him think I was the coolest kid in school. He wore jeans and cowboy boots to class, smoked in the theatre, and was the kind of professional actor I knew I would be some day.

But I had a horrible show. I didn't forget my lines, or miss any entrances, I just didn't feel like I was at the peak of performance.

After the show, he came up and we began talking. He asked me how the show went and I stupidly told him that I felt lousy about it.

Then he asked me how I dealt with it.

I, of course thinking how volcanic my excrement was, when into a long diatribe highlighting my professional ability to pull it all together in the end.

He shrugged and went away, fully aware that my monologue was pucky at best . . .

. . . miserably whiny self conscience twaddle at worst.

Hindsight really sucks sometimes.

He couldn't have cared less about the show, or me for that matter.

What he wanted, as any good teacher might, is to have the opportunity to instill a little bit of wisdom, and he knew I was way too full of myself to listen.

Had I not been such a schmuck, I might have learned in just a few conversations what it took me another decade to learn.

So yeah, I've once again found myself without a magical key to creation. But there is a secret of gaining momentum. Of pushing Newton's body at rest into motion.

Give yourself the peace of mind that comes from organizing your physical space. Fuel your body with good stuff. Get your body strong. Show a little fragility. And listen.