On song writing …

The New York Times recently started this great new blog, Measure for Measure (How to write a song and other mysteries). Today, Darrell Brown wrote a great piece about (song)writers being emotional spies, here’s an excerpt..

While I was finding my way as a songwriter, a colleague of mine, Ed Sanford, told me something I’ve since found to be very true. Songwriters, he said, are “emotional spies” — little creative crazies creeping around, sneaking in and out of our own emotions, watching, listening and remembering every bit of conversation with friends, family and every stranger we meet.

Yes, we are a funny, greedy group of people. If a song is cowering deep inside someone else’s divorce, engagement, seduction, innocence, sickness, recovery, treachery or resurrection, we long to see every crevice of it revealed in the light, all dressed up in grooves, chords and poetry [...]

In general, it doesn’t matter to me if a title is the first thing to come out or the chord progression or any part of the melody or lyrics. I just want anything to come out so I can start writing (or the song can start writing itself). And I don’t judge during the writing. It doesn’t even matter to me if it sounds like a commercial hit song or an art song. I just want the song to be true to itself. As both a songwriter and a human being, I try to keep myself open and give back as much as I take in. After all, I am surrounded by emotional spies of my own day in and day out. I need to be spied on as much as the next songwriter. It’s a win-win situation.

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