Red Mosquito

Regardless of your personal artistic output, trying to explain songwriting is either naivety or simple gimmick. So pick one. Either you've blurred the line between "what works for me" and "what should be done," or you've taken to writing with tongue pressed so firmly in cheek that you've managed to thoroughly distort your perception.

There's a reason that Tom Waits offers hand waving dismissives like "songs are just interesting things to do with the air" when the subject is at hand...and that he only gets more dismissive as the questions get more direct. As soon as you start trying to get specific about what songwriting is or should be, you've already fucked the whole thing up beyond the hope of salvation. Or maybe you've made Backspacer. I dunno.

Well said

McParadigm wrote:Regardless of your personal artistic output, trying to explain songwriting is either naivety or simple gimmick. So pick one. Either you've blurred the line between "what works for me" and "what should be done," or you've taken to writing with tongue pressed so firmly in cheek that you've managed to thoroughly distort your perception.

There's a reason that Tom Waits offers hand waving dismissives like "songs are just interesting things to do with the air" when the subject is at hand...and that he only gets more dismissive as the questions get more direct. As soon as you start trying to get specific about what songwriting is or should be, you've already fucked the whole thing up beyond the hope of salvation. Or maybe you've made Backspacer. I dunno.

that's a little mystical, isn't it?

I think the extent to which someone can talk about their song well will probably be reflected in the song itself. By which I mean people writing bland songs with crap language won't talk about them very well, and people with a great vocabulary and an interesting command of language might well do (unless deliberately choosing not to). As for Tom Waits, the fact that he can come up with excellent metaphors for songs on the spur of the moment ('songs are just interesting things to do with the air' -- that is GOOD) means that it's not a 'dashed off' answer he's giving you. It's a clever, and probably accurate, answer, even if it's brief and he's saying it's throwaway. For example, one of my favourite poets is Norman "Two Fags" MacCaig, so-called because when journalists asked him how long it usually took him to write a poem, he said "Two fags." The answer was clever because it exposed the stupidity of the question; we know he could've given a great in depth answer if he'd wanted to, but he said that he was usually finished after two cigarettes (which, everyone knows, was a lie).

Just because Tom Waits says so doesn't mean that there aren't useful descriptions and explanations of the songwriting process.

Bob Dylan has provided a range of comments on his process from Blowin' in the Wind was written in 10 minutes (based on No More Auction Block) to more elaborate examples of using different forms and melodies taken and evolved from folk and blues. Other artists also talk about the song writing process in terms of how they create the music - from jams and from study of different forms and genres, or taking a lead from jazz by taking old chord progressions and inventing new melodies. Of course a lot of songs come from Thin Air (as a result of study, practice and observation as well as perhaps some divine intervention) but there are certainly songs that have been crafted more explicitly.

I wonder if the actual album will generate a thread as good as this one...

broken iris wrote:I wonder if the actual album will generate a thread as good as this one...

Of course not. When limits are set, meandering is less interesting.

Blenheim Augustine wrote:Bob Dylan has provided a range of comments on his process from Blowin' in the Wind was written in 10 minutes (based on No More Auction Block) to more elaborate examples of using different forms and melodies taken and evolved from folk and blues.

His chapter on "Oh Mercy" in "Chronicles" is great--there are a lot of little snippets about how those songs came to be, both as written works and as sonic pieces, that are more candid than I would expect from Dylan, keeping in mind that you never really know how truthful he's being.

Westerberg's amusing ramble may not be the best evidence, but I agree that there are valuable things to be said about the songwriting process. There is no definitive "what songwriting is or should be," but for many artists there is a very definitive "what it historically has been for them," and I think both listeners and composers can absorb things from someone trying within reason to describe that.

Kevin Davis wrote:Westerberg's amusing ramble may not be the best evidence, but I agree that there are valuable things to be said about the songwriting process. There is no definitive "what songwriting is or should be," but for many artists there is a very definitive "what it historically has been for them," and I think both listeners and composers can absorb things from someone trying within reason to describe that.

I agree with this, which is why I tried to draw a distinction between someone saying "here's what I've done or how I did this" versus "here's how songwriting works."

McParadigm wrote:(if you try to explain how to write songs, or give advice on how best to do it, then) Either you've blurred the line between "what works for me" and "what should be done," or you've taken to writing with tongue pressed so firmly in cheek that you've managed to distort your perception.

I'm fascinated, for example, with the processes that built the Beatles songs (and how they differed from the way the individual members wrote and designed their works, later in life). I found it really interesting that Dylan has often written lyrics well before finding music to put them to. But I'm not learning lessons from any of this....just drawing insights into an artist that I like.

If you try to dissect it to find out what it is and how it works, you've missed the point and never will truly understand what it is. We're famous for overanalyses. Never got us anywhere and in a lot of cases it just steals the enjoyment.

dimejinky99 wrote:If you try to dissect it to find out what it is and how it works, you've missed the point and never will truly understand what it is. We're famous for overanalyses. Never got us anywhere and in a lot of cases it just steals the enjoyment.

what point, exactly, have you missed?

stip wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:If you try to dissect it to find out what it is and how it works, you've missed the point and never will truly understand what it is. We're famous for overanalyses. Never got us anywhere and in a lot of cases it just steals the enjoyment.

what point, exactly, have you missed?

That something isn't very good under scrutiny?

We so desperately need this 10th album.

well said

harmless wrote:

stip wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:If you try to dissect it to find out what it is and how it works, you've missed the point and never will truly understand what it is. We're famous for overanalyses. Never got us anywhere and in a lot of cases it just steals the enjoyment.

what point, exactly, have you missed?

That something isn't very good under scrutiny?

when you analyze something you're going in for a very different experience then when you just want to listen or watch something and feel the moment of it. It's two different ways of interacting with art. They aren't mutually exclusive, and they both challenge and engage you in different ways.

Can analysis be worthwhile? Is the theater really dead?

Analysis. Gems and rhinestones. Go for it.

Sometimes, analysis shouldn't come into it was my point.
Trying to over intellectualise something that's really very simple, just ruins it for whoever a doing it. It can be as simple as 'I like it' or 'I don't'. It won't make a pit member of you for not having to prove you can think.

dimejinky99 wrote:Analysis. Gems and rhinestones. Go for it.

Sometimes, analysis shouldn't come into it was my point.
Trying to over intellectualise something that's really very simple, just ruins it for whoever a doing it. It can be as simple as 'I like it' or 'I don't'. It won't make a pit member of you for not having to prove you can think.

it's a different exercise. Sometimes you want to think. Sometimes you want to feel. Sometimes you can do both. it engages the same art from different angles.

stip wrote:Sometimes you want to think. Sometimes you want to feel.

And how do you feel?

theplatypus wrote:

stip wrote:Sometimes you want to think. Sometimes you want to feel.

And how do you feel?

fucking how do you?