Songwriter Confessions #1
xik...@yahoo.com.tw
Ann rather than St Felicity, I spotted the small dark mist in the
usual corner behind the left monitor speaker. I have sometimes
believed absolutely that this is my best muse, back from a pizza run
to the outer starbelt. Or maybe just the golden ring around Uranus.
Anyhoo...It seems to bring inspiration in a dark way: more Keith
Richards than Cliff Richard, and I feel the urge to write something
that involves leather, whips and a snare drum that sounds like
Pavarotti hitting the water from the top board. I dig out my file
called Heavy Riffs That AC/DC Lost Under The Driver's Seat. It would
help if the word MURDER appeared in the first lyric line: that always
gets the bowie knives out. As Sam Goldwyn said: Start with an
exploding volcano and build up from there to a climax.
I can't emphasise how important the first two lines of the first verse
are, in any song.This is where you the artist set the hook in their
miniscule attention spans or not. If you simper your way into a song,
as per a style I like to call Captain Cliche, you've probably lost
them before the second guitar comes in. Please avoid a first verse
that goes like this: ooh I love you, yes it's true, what am I supposed
to do, baby I know without you, all my dreams are down the loo...blah
blah...
Anybody still awake? The only thing that might just save that song
would be a beat strong enough to flip Lazarus out of the grave and
over the horizon. I never thought that the years I spent writing ad
copy for various ad agencies would be worth so much to me now. The
rule in advertising is: when you've written the headline, you've spent
80c of your dollar. It's got to hook them. It's gotta say something
different about a subject you've heard a million times. Take the
neverending subject of LOVE ( also known as LURV...the NASTY...and
BUMPING UGLIES) If I taught songwriting, one of the first projects I
would set would have to be: write a song about LOVE, but make it
interesting.Make it different. Make the listener say: I never thought
of it that way before. Now Paul McCartney, being famous, doesn't have
to work as hard as the rest of us. So he calls it: Another Silly Love
Song. With a chorus that goes: iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou. Phew,
Macca...time to open the window!
Here's how I do it: my song is called: If You Were Icecream... and the