Red Mosquito

McParadigm wrote:I think it probably matters too whether or not you write your own songs. Nobody's words will be able to compete with your own, when it comes to something like great loss, and once you have that direct everything else feels a little incomplete

Everyone tries to express their own feelings. Even if they're not doing it in writing or through songs or some other medium, they'll do it in conversation or an internal monologue that no one else ever gets to hear. And we're still drawn to sounds, images, and words created by other people because they express what we experienced BETTER than what we can do ourselves. Being a song writer doesn't mean that your words are necessarily going to be the definitive word on the subject for you. Otherwise why would artists ever feel the need to look at other art?

Having said that, maybe you really nailed precisely how you were feeling better than anyone else could have. Certainly the more expressive you are, the greater the likelihood of you being able to capture the particular dynamics of your experience. But someone else's voice might better express the emotion, or a phrase, written for an experience that wasn't yours, could still perfectly capture its essence better than you could.

stip wrote: Being a song writer doesn't mean that your words are necessarily going to be the definitive word on the subject for you.

not necessarily but very quite possible

Obviously I can only speak from personal experience...but for me, after so many years of writing, it isn't an analytical or measured exercise. It's like physical response. You just sit down and it happens. There's no pacing a room trying to think of a rhyme, no "how could I say this better" rewriting, or hard thought of any kind. It's a purely emotional event, and the more emotionally intensive the inspiration the more the writing seems to be a direct line to the heart of the experience.

And that connection is not presented in literal ways, either. A lot of the time I find I learn more about what it is I'm feeling by listening to a song after it's written than I ever did at the start.

I think the pursuit of music in times of duress is as much about trying to find the language needed to come to terms with events as anything else. We aren't really built to understand death or trauma or loss...or even love, really. They are intended to be forces beyond our cognitive control. So when you are comfortable enough with a creative process that you can just close your eyes and, for example, the words just seem to sort of appear, melody already attached, that introduces an unignorable element to the coping process.

When I reach back to songs I wrote when my children were born, when my step son had his accident, or when Breanna died, they put me back in that time and place in a way that rings of sorcery and hallucination. So much so that I just had to go back and rewrite that sentence, because the first time through I wrote it entirely in the present tense. The events have all passed, but the song is always now, and it can be hard to distinguish between the two.

And anyway, nobody…not Tom Waits, not Pearl Jam, not Neil Young or John Lennon...has ever given me a line that captures the deal I made with my father's memory quite like "You be the ghost, and I'll haunt you."

Also, if stip says I'm wrong, then I must certainly be right.

Just peed for like 10 minutes

Sorry, I meant to post that in the Talk About Your Day thread. But now it's staying here

This is where it belongs.

It's welcome here.

theplatypus wrote:Just peed for like 10 minutes

Songs about loss that you didn't know were about loss:

Hold On
Yellow Ledbetter
Even Flow

McParadigm wrote:Obviously I can only speak from personal experience...but for me, after so many years of writing, it isn't an analytical or measured exercise. It's like physical response. You just sit down and it happens. There's no pacing a room trying to think of a rhyme, no "how could I say this better" rewriting, or hard thought of any kind. It's a purely emotional event, and the more emotionally intensive the inspiration the more the writing seems to be a direct line to the heart of the experience.

And that connection is not presented in literal ways, either. A lot of the time I find I learn more about what it is I'm feeling by listening to a song after it's written than I ever did at the start.

I think the pursuit of music in times of duress is as much about trying to find the language needed to come to terms with events as anything else. We aren't really built to understand death or trauma or loss...or even love, really. They are intended to be forces beyond our cognitive control. So when you are comfortable enough with a creative process that you can just close your eyes and, for example, the words just seem to sort of appear, melody already attached, that introduces an unignorable element to the coping process.

When I reach back to songs I wrote when my children were born, when my step son had his accident, or when Breanna died, they put me back in that time and place in a way that rings of sorcery and hallucination. So much so that I just had to go back and rewrite that sentence, because the first time through I wrote it entirely in the present tense. The events have all passed, but the song is always now, and it can be hard to distinguish between the two.

And anyway, nobody…not Tom Waits, not Pearl Jam, not Neil Young or John Lennon...has ever given me a line that captures the deal I made with my father's memory quite like "You be the ghost, and I'll haunt you."

That's a powerful line. But, despite your authorship, I can just as easily imagine someone latching into it and making it your own.

Actually, that's a separate thing than what we were talking about.

theplatypus wrote:Just peed for like 10 minutes

theplatypus wrote:Just peed for like 10 minutes

It's like physical response. You just sit down and it happens.

Seriously, that line in Indifference indicates a girl sleeping next to the narrator. And not in a metaphorical way. It's a document of despondent insomnia, and maybe some fatalism, but nothing literally fatal. It's 0 votes are well-earned.

lvc wrote:Seriously, that line in Indifference indicates a girl sleeping next to the narrator. And not in a metaphorical way. It's a document of despondent insomnia, and maybe some fatalism, but nothing literally fatal. It's 0 votes are well-earned.

I'm not sure about this.

I voted for Light Years, but I would say that and a few others are more about breakups than death.

You would say Light Years is about a break up?

Lament wrote:You would say Light Years is about a break up?

Yeah...I can see why it's a death song(upon refreshing myself to the lyrics), and admit my take is probably not what EV had in mind, but a few of the lines always feel more breakup-ish to me. I probably just got dumped when I decided that or was probably looking for some deeper hidden meaning, but that's how I've heard the song for as long as I can remember.

Hmm, that's interesting. I don't think I've ever heard anyone interpret it like that before.

McParadigm wrote:So when you are comfortable enough with a creative process that you can just close your eyes and, for example, the words just seem to sort of appear, melody already attached, that introduces an unignorable element to the coping process.

A lot of writers describe their writing process in a similar way (She comes on like a stone....). I'm more drawn to this kind of songwriting i found out as most of my favourite music was written in a very short time. Even when it comes to PJ. It has an element you can't effectively rationalise or reduce to a formula that give an edge to the song that coming up with ideas and forcing songs out of them rarely has.

About the thread. My mother died of lung cancer less than 3 weeks ago. I think something instrumental may be closer to conveying what I'm going trough, even just a chord, rather than any lyrics. I don't think any lyrics are mean't to fully convey this things. Too many things influence how one perceives it, from the relationship you had with the person to how and why the person passed away.

Spoiler: show

no, i have not started a "my mother died, play this song in Trieste thread on the pit"

I'm sorry for your loss