Notes from a Songwriter
I have somewhat unexpectedly found myself writing new songs this month, and what many of you probably don't realize is that this is not always a voluntary process. Now, sometimes I do sit down and decide to write a song, but more often than not, the songs find me, come knocking on the window of my soul and demand to be admitted. As crazy as that sounds (or makes me sound), I'm not even slightly joking about this. Then the song hangs around, like an extra presence in my life, occupying my thoughts, distracting me from work, until it is at last brought to a point of completion. I wonder if this is what it's like to be possessed? And maybe I AM possessed, just an empty vessel, open and ready for the muse to fill with any song that has truth and needs to be shared with the world.
Every song starts with an idea. Sometimes the idea turns into lines of rhythmic language, spoken almost like a rap or a poem which I then later put to music, or put music to it, rather. Sometimes the idea comes as music and words all together in a nice little package (and that is nice!). These two are the most common ways a song starts out for me.
From these initial bits and pieces I begin to whittle out the song, removing all the parts that don't belong, in a process that reminds me a bit of a quote I once heard by the famous artist, Michealangelo, he said: "In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it."
So I'm more or less a sculptor, working to uncover the song from a jumble of notes and words. I can see it there, it already exists, perfect and complete, just waiting to be unveiled, asking to be heard.
