Since the post on Sept. 25 discussed Circe Link and her songwriting I thought it only fair she get a fair chance at presenting her own point of view. Circe is a wildly talented musician, singer and songwriter (among many other creative things) whose music is well worth knowing and who writes songs pretty much on a daily basis. I'll leave the rest to her:
Circe Link
First off let me say I am honored and delighted Jeff reached out and asked me to guest post about one of my favorite things in the world, the creative process and more specifically songwriting.
I am constantly inspired by my fellow artists, mighty wielders of the pen, Jeff included of course, and the community we form in support of one another is essential to keeping the arts alive!
Onward….
It seems the Muse is a fickle creature and when she so deigns to appear at your shoulder either in enchanted indigo night or red eyed hung over jittery morning, one must obey her whispers to get your lazy ass out of bed take a notes.
Some strange places I have written songs:
Traffic jams, airplanes, bank lines, bathrooms - many many bathrooms, movie theaters, museums, hotels, subways, back stage, and inappropriately during many social events such as intimate dinners … you get the idea.
My mind is like a pit-bull with an idea (probably nicer and less dangerous…probably), or a squirrel with a nut. Once I have captured the inkling, it’s almost an obsession that lurks no matter what I may be trying to accomplish elsewhere. I’ll admit it’s a pleasurable obsession and turning the various rough and rocky stones of ideas over and over in my mind until they are smooth, effortless and compliant is not so unlike sucking on a nice hard candy. Yum!
To say I don’t have many concentrated hours at my desk with my guitar in hand would be untrue because naturally that is a huge part of the endeavor. However, the spark, the ribbon, the ephemeral smoke, the invisible butterflies that I seek that many find hard to find at all, are everywhere if one is listening. Or looking. And if you don’t have that, you ain’t got nothing.
I have known many a songwriter, and generally speaking most artists are in kind in this way, that complain they can not find the place to start. They say that words and lyrics are the most challenging thing, and that they feel inspired by the musical aspects of their songs but what to say is a torturous thing that keeps them from even starting. To that I say, just give up.
Give up and get over trying to be perfect, because that little voice that we all have deep inside, some not so deep inside, is full of shit. It’s not usually that they can’t think of an idea or theme to illustrate with their song, it’s the devil, a priori assassin saying “This had better be good pal… you’re no McCartney or Lennon.” Essentially it’s not that you can’t think of something, it’s that you think what you think isn’t good enough. And it definitely isn’t if you never try.
Some silly ideas I have come up with to writes songs about:
From the perspective of a stripe on a shirt of a man whose wife is a volunteer for a homeless shelter, about a girl who makes her old love letters into paper boats and sets them in the water, a divine hotel where drunks find salvation or suicide, a dandelion on the freeway, a woman who obeys her husband just like their pet dog with slippers and newspaper, luggage, a matinee theatre ticket taker who wants to be a great film director… you get the idea.
And then there is practice. Write all the songs, the good ones, the bad ones, the ones you don’t like, the ones that sound like someone else should be writing them, because it’s all good practice. Not that I’m a baseball nut (I miss you Vin Scully The Cotton Candy Haired Poet of Chavez Ravine) but lose the games you gotta lose, so you can win the ones you can. I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time anymore writing songs I don’t care for, but as the Muse requires I absolutely write them down and get them out of the way so she has more room to breathe, I guess it’s pretty crowded in there. I had a friend who was a personal assistant for Neil Simon, and she asked him one day how he did it? How he was so amazingly good? And he told her that he writes every day, gets up goes into his office or study or whatever the room was, closes the door and writes. Even when he doesn’t want to, and it presupposes even when he has nothing to say. Just keep pushing that rock up the hill li'l Sisyphus.
As far as the musical aspect is concerned I have always heard what I like to call a Cosmic Radio Station that is broadcasting endlessly in the expanding universe, and all one has to do is find the best spot on the dial (I’m having visions of myself with a tinfoil hat on next time I play guitar)
If I want to I can sit down and tune in and hear a hundred melodies, a thousand, an endless supply of aural offerings that bubble up from this most likely unconscious collective of places. Once one has tickled my fancy I pull her in like a wild pony, walk her around the pen for awhile as I hear her story, or sometimes try and force one on her, then I bring in the song whisperer. My partner in both life and music is the musical phenom called Christian Nesmith and he can tame just about any creature I dredge up from the Lovecraftian depths where my Muse often hangs out. We collaborate upon the basic foundation I have pulled together, sometimes it’s like sculpting where we take things away, sometimes we add, and sometimes we even scrap the whole thing and move on, and on and on. But we have found a dance that works for us, and while sometimes the songs are all my own creaky and weak on new born legs I’ve learned a few things from him about horses err …. songs! The effect he has had on my writing has been profound and he has made me a better writer and musician for which I am evermore indebted.
Some things I have though about while writing this:
Who the heck will even read this? Will anyone be benefited by it? I hope Jeff will help me correct my punctuation, I should have a glass of water, I really love using images and metaphors maybe too much which is funny, it’s time to go write a song… you get the idea.
Two books I would advise any writer or artist to read:
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Songwriters on Songwriting by Paul Zollo
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