Songwriting Rules of the Road (at least in, and ONLY in my opinion)...

[joelf]

Now you're broaching songs about songwriting. There's Dylan's Country Pie; the godawful (at least in the turgid bridge) I Write the Songs---and many more I can't remember just now.

Or how many times have songwriters written the line: '...so I wrote this song...'?

[joelf]

Put another way, if Cole Porter were alive today, he wouldn't be writing 32-bar AABA songs. He used that form because it was the most popular form for popular songs at the time. It no longer is.

I'm still writing that way, among other ways. Gotta do what works for me, not what's popular.

And I'm far from the only one doing it today. And what about Jobim, from the late '50s up til his passing in '94? Worked just fine for him. Or A song like Yesterday? Classic AABA...

[MarkRhodes]

Now you're broaching songs about songwriting. There's Dylan's Country Pie; the godawful (at least in the turgid bridge) I Write the Songs---and many more I can't remember just now.

Or how many times have songwriters written the line: '...so I wrote this song...'?

Randy Newman uses that in "Good Old Boys", which you mentioned above.

[MarkRhodes]

I'm still writing that way, among other ways. Gotta do what works for me, not what's popular.

Sure, you gotta do what works for you. But, say, Gershwin could make all kinds of things work for him; he wrote show tunes in the style of the day because he wanted them to be popular. Irving Berlin was trying to be popular. So was Johnny Mercer. He started a record company, for heavensake. Sammy Cahn, when asked, "What comes first, the music or the lyrics?" answered "The check!" (This is sometimes told as "The phone call asking you to write a song," which implies payment for completing it.) He wasn't ashamed to write for money and he took great pride in his commercial success. (One thing Cahn paid a lot of attention to---and talked about in relation to songwriting---was the 'singability' of a lyric. This is very important and part of the reason why some ungrammatical lines may be the mark of great songwriting because they sing just-so. They're not lazy; they're crafty. But I digress...

I'm a nobody and I write things I enjoy playing. I have fun with it. "I don't want to set the world on fire." I hope that on my deathbed there are 2-3 hours worth of my songs I am happy I wrote. They will be all that ties together the whole of my life and makes the best of it.

[neatomic]

^ couldn't disagree more about hal david!!...he wasn't tryin to be hip..he was hip and he was backpeddling...to make hits...which he did!! time after time and time again!...


nothing better than dionne w singing a bacharach/david tune!


cheers

[Thumpalumpacus]

Part of presentation nowadays includes the persona of the singer who also wrote (or co-wrote) the song he is singing.
To continue with Steely Dan, I think the only cover they ever did was of Duke's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" (on "Pretzel Logic") They were doing their own songs and their previous records were part of the assumed framework of latter ones.

And then there is the singer who may only occasionally write a song (or a lyric) but who seeks out material to suit an onstage persona and so is able to make a song be heard a certain way that has as much to do with its success as the songwriting itself.

I'm thinking of Peggy Lee's recording of "Is That All There Is." The songwriters (Jerry Lebier and Mike Stoller) did not want Peggy to record it. They thought she was all wrong for it. She managed to record it anyway (she chose a then-23-year-old Randy Newman to do the arrangement.) But the record company didn't want to put it out. Finally she got her friend Joey Bishop to have her on his show where she would sing it---she told the record company and they begrudgingly pressed a few thousand copies. The song earned her a Grammy and became part of Lee's legend. It seems more "her" than some of the songs she wrote with husband Dave Barbour (-and they wrote many good songs together).

A song is like anything else: once you give it life, it can take on a life all its own. That's the beauty of interpretation, right?

My favorite Christmas song, and I use that term loosely, is Coltrane's cover of MFT. I think his take was very far afield of what R&H had in mind writing it, but boy, it tickles me.

Like children, you have to go of a song sooner or later.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Now you're broaching songs about songwriting. There's Dylan's Country Pie; the godawful (at least in the turgid bridge) I Write the Songs---and many more I can't remember just now.

Or how many times have songwriters written the line: '...so I wrote this song...'?

Self-awareness, or self-consciousness, can sometimes ruin a perfectly good song ... or make it. That's another very fine line in the craft.

[MarkRhodes]

Some songwriting tips, including quotes from songwriters from Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen to Tom Morello and Taylor Swift.

How to Write a Song | 10 Songwriting Tips from the Pros

[MarkRhodes]

From a Time magazine cover story on Cole Porter's writing process. (From 1949)

Cole Porter at 125: Inside His Songwriting Process | Time

[Thumpalumpacus]

Some songwriting tips, including quotes from songwriters from Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen to Tom Morello and Taylor Swift.

How to Write a Song | 10 Songwriting Tips from the Pros

That's a cool article loaded with good points, but while they alluded to it at points, there's something missing that I consider the primary rule of songwriting: do not judge the song while you're in the process of writing it. Get out of the way and start going. You can rewrite anything, this is not a final exam.

Silence your inner judge until you have the essential body of the song. Don't stifle the process with ulterior considerations.

[MarkRhodes]

That's a cool article loaded with good points, but while they alluded to it at points, there's something missing that I consider the primary rule of songwriting: do not judge the song while you're in the process of writing it. Get out of the way and start going. You can rewrite anything, this is not a final exam.

Silence your inner judge until you have the essential body of the song. Don't stifle the process with ulterior considerations.

That is good advice. There's an expression among writers, "You can't revise a blank page." You have to get something out, get something down, to have anything to work with.

Anne Lamott: Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.

Shitty first drafts. I need to produce more of 'em.

[joelf]

You're both right---and songwriters from both points of view are, too.

Persistence will at least yield something you can develop, or like better later if it looks like crap.

Worry is more complicated: If you worry it means you care. If you don't, why do anything? But if it causes you to force, instant death of flow and energy. Leave it until the muse returns. The rough spots? That's where craft---or bouncing it off someone you trust, b/c we're often too close to our work---can save your ass.

My 1st song w/lyric was sent half-baked (lyric needed much more work, silly font, the vamp interlude I eventually used not yet there) to a vocalist I'd heard was looking for material. She sent a chilly, condescending email rejecting it---which taught me an unbelievably valuable lesson: don't rush!! I licked my wounds awhile, picked it up again, saw how good it'd be with a fix---now it's fixed, and I can hold my head up.

Another one (an instrumental) just didn't feel right somehow. Stayed in the file cabinet 10 years, til what it needed hit me. Now it's a good tune.

Don't rush; work enough to at least get the shape of all ideas, even if they don't seem that good. There could be gold later mined from that 'dog'...

[Thumpalumpacus]

Worry is more complicated: If you worry it means you care. If you don't, why do anything? But if it causes you to force, instant death of flow and energy. Leave it until the muse returns. The rough spots? That's where craft---or bouncing it off someone you trust, b/c we're often too close to our work---can save your ass.

What I do, Joel, is when I hit a roadblock I walk away from the song or part in question and return to it later. The human subconscious has an amazing ability to resolve problems on its own once the conscious mind leaves it alone. I will return to craft the piece on occasion, but I've got enough experience beating the life out of a song that soldiering after it doesn't work for me too often. I like the moment of inspiration being nearby, even if the fragment is five years old I'll run through it and see if something worthwhile pops up.

As you aptly point out (as does Mark's article too), different approaches work better with different songwriters. I enjoy employing craft, but it's got to light me up, too. If it doesn't, I step away from it, work on something else, and then return to it another day.

Funny story: about five years ago, I was working on a pop song based on the major/minor tension between Emaj7 and Cmaj7, and had really good verses and choruses written for it, but it felt unfinished, it needed a bridge. I couldn't get one together. It just wasn't happening -- everything I tried sounded trite -- so I set it aside and moved on to another few songs.

So one day my girl was asking to play some songs that were in progress but not done, something I usually never do, but I humored her, because, well, women. I launch into this unfinished verse/chorus thing, and when I got to the part where the bridge belonged, instead of freezing up, I jammed in an arpeggio lick based on a stepwise (in F) Fmaj7 -- Dmaj9 layout (which I'd literally had laying around for 20 years), and surprise surprise, it fit and flowed. It was one of those very rare moments where I blew myself away, you know? It took the piece another place without sounding forced, and then I finished up the last verse and chorus and all was good.

When I got done playing it for her, she told me, "But that sounds finished."

I laughed a little and replied, "Well, it is now, thank you, hon."

It took me about an hour to put the lyrics together for it a day or two later.

The balance between inspiration and perspiration is a funny thing, so I don't try to force myself on the song, but I do stay alert to possibilities. I remember those little bits I've written that never got fleshed out, and don't waste a piece if I can help it.

[joelf]

'The human subconscious has an amazing ability to resolve problems on its own once the conscious mind leaves it alone.'

Bingo. Get out of the way...

[fep]

'The human subconscious has an amazing ability to resolve problems on its own once the conscious mind leaves it alone.'

Bingo. Get out of the way...

If I have a tune I'm working on and I take a quick early morning listen to what I have (I'm usually recording right when I have a seed of an idea), and then go for a dog walk... Things will often appear to me this way.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Exactly, don't interrupt the process with desiderata, just sit on it when you have a little stoppage.

[joelf]

Desiderat a ttitude...

[fep]

I enjoyed this discussion of one of my favorites:

[MarkRhodes]

If I have a tune I'm working on and I take a quick early morning listen to what I have (I'm usually recording right when I have a seed of an idea), and then go for a dog walk... Things will often appear to me this way.

Einstein said he got his best ideas while shaving.

There's something about repetitive motion---which covers walking and for some, scrubbing floors or washing a car or baking cookies or shooting hoops---that seems to allow stalled ideas to move.

[MarkRhodes]

Funny thing about Dylan. He sings his own songs though he's not considered much of a singer. Yet many others (including better singers) have recorded his songs.

Discuss.

[fep]

I'd say Dylan is a character singer. Back in the day folks were more accepting of voices that weren't studio polished and with unusual tone and more variance in pitch. I'm biased towards flawed vocalists, after all I'm one of those myself.

As far as others singing his songs, I'll just say, good songs.

Joni and Dylan hitting this thread today... Joni had opinions about Dylan, I believe she questioned his authenticity. Now there's something I find thought provoking both in that Joni would say that and whether it's valid.

[MarkRhodes]

I'd say Dylan is a character singer. Back in the day folks were more accepting of voices that weren't studio polished and with unusual tone and more variance in pitch. I'm biased towards flawed vocalists, after all I'm one of those myself.

As far as others singing his songs, I'll just say, good songs.

Joni and Dylan hitting this thread today... Joni had opinions about Dylan, I believe she questioned his authenticity. Now there's something I find thought provoking both in that Joni would say that and whether it's valid.

I've long been drawn to, as you say, "character singers": Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Tom Waits, Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, many others.

In Dylan's case, though, I think something needs to be said that rarely is said: he can write a catchy melody. "Blowin' In The Wind" and "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" are catchy. (They have been covered a few hundred times each.) Very singable tunes.

I didn't know Joni said that about Dylan. I don't know what "authentic" means here. Dylan is very much a writer who plays on tropes (musical and lyrical) from songs he knows. That's how his musical mind works. Here's one of his latest songs (based on one from the '50s) and I really like it (though I think it has too many verses.)

[Thumpalumpacus]

Einstein said he got his best ideas while shaving.

There's something about repetitive motion---which covers walking and for some, scrubbing floors or washing a car or baking cookies or shooting hoops---that seems to allow stalled ideas to move.

I've had a couple of great songs come to me while on bike rides of fifteen or twenty miles. For me, there's something about getting into a good groove on the pedals that gets me to coming up with good riffs for a rhythm section.

Another thing I'd do is a change of scenery. Instead of sitting in my studio plugging away at a block, I'd grab an acoustic, or a portable keyboard, and head to the beach, or the hills overlooking Ventura, and let the surroundings work their way in, too.

[MarkRhodes]

And Pat Metheny questioned Joni's authenticity at a 1989 master class, Royal Conservatory of the Hague (paraphrased): 'I worked w/Joni Mitchell. She said she didn't care what the names are for her chords. Can't get behind that'.

Joel, I enjoyed your whole post. I'm confused by this part. I don't know what "authenticity" means here.
Joni's not caring about the names of her chords doesn't seem to me to a matter authenticity (or its lack) at all. Lots of musicians with very good ears don't care about the names of chords (or notes, for that matter): it's all sound to them, not names.

Pat Martino was playing professionally in his teens (and at a high level) without knowing the names of all the chords he played. He said he picked them up off records---lots of Wes Montgomery records, IIRC---and they were sounds to him. Knowing their names would not have been a benefit to him. (He later needed to learn some of these things to communicate with other musicians but he didn't need to know it to play the music.)

Bruce Forman talks somewhere about playing with a pianist who used some tasty voicings. Bruce wanted to learn them and asked the guy about them. The guy had his own sorts of names for them, the only one I recall off hand was "baby doll". I think the others were a "doll" of some sort or other. That's how he thought about them. That's what he actually called them to another pro player. Those names meant nothing to Bruce, of course. He had to suss out the voicings, analyze them and then give them conventional names. But the guy who came up with them did not need that.

Either way, I don't see what this has to do with authenticity one way or the other.

What am I missing?
Was Pat saying she wasn't an authentic musician?

[joelf]

Joel, I enjoyed your whole post. I'm confused by this part. I don't know what "authenticity" means h

Well, of course I'm not inside the man's brain, but it's a good guess he was looking askance at what he saw as at Joni's willful ignorance, and falling into that oft-fallen into trap of avoidance of knowledge b/c somehow it will impede the pure, if you will, 'childlike' creative flow. (I used 'authenticity' b/c she did).

I'm a huge fan of her work, and there are few more 'authentic'. But Pat does have a point---if I read him right: self-limitation of knowledge is anathema to artistic growth---or growth in any field. Learning bolsters intuition. Only the naive or very insecure---or simply misled---artist would disagree with that. You don't have to use every can of paint, just stock 'em and know at least something about what each does.

Learning is a life-long undertaking...