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?"