The image above has something to do with this post. Give me a moment and I’ll tell you how.
I think a lot about songwriting. The fact is though, that I write very few songs, but many more tracks. What I mean by this is that the music I compose is not songwriting. To me, a songwriter writes something that you can sing. You can’t sing my songs, but I’d like to see you try if you disagree with me.
There are gifted songwriters out there. One of them, in my opinion, is Patty Griffin. Let me preface this by saying that most of those out there who think you know my musical tastes will probably not expect me to like PG or even live in the same universe as her. But I do, and musical influence is a strange animal that knows no boundaries. Not in the same way that tastes impose boundaries.
Artistic influence is about what is on the outside and hasn’t completely made it in yet. That’s the only way it stands a chance to inspire – to be different, to contrast and to show a different way of doing things. In the case of Patty Griffin, there was never much of a chance that we are remotely similar. But there is something in her songwriting that strikes a chord with me, and indeed one of her songs, “Goodbye,” is one of the few songs by anyone to have achieved a 10/10 rating on my Radio Paradise account.
Part of songwriting, to me, is writing good lyrics. This might sound obvious to many of you but I have spoken to a lot of people who do not take lyrics into consideration when they judge whether or not they like a song. If I think I like a song, I immediately look up the lyrics – this is to see if I like the message behind it all. If the lyrics turn out to be garbage, then it sours the song for me. However, in the case where the lyrics are very good, it can turn an already good song into a meaningfully good song. That is another category altogether – this is the kind of music that now has lasting power for me. I’m not going to get into what I consider to be good songwriting itself or what good lyrics are. That is far too subjective – I’d rather just say that you know when something has been written with purpose, and you also know when something was just written. And finally I’d like to give you an example of the good songwriting I am talking about.
The example I’ve chosen is a lo-fi video of a PG doing a performance of the song “Goodbye” with an acoustic guitar. This is pretty raw and in this environment I think this really shows the talent involved. Here it is:
And here are the lyrics. Maybe follow along while watching the video:
Occured to me the other day
You’ve been gone now a couple years
Well, I guess it takes while
For someone to really disappear
And I remember where I was
When the word came about you
It was a day much like today
The sky was bright, and wide, and blue
And I wonder where you are
And if the pain ends when you die
And I wonder if there was
Some better way to say goodbye
Today my heart is big and sore
Its tryin’ to push right through my skin
I wont see you anymore
I guess thats finally sinkin’ in
Cause you cant make somebody see
By the simple words you say
All their beauty from within
Sometimes they just look away
But I wonder where you are
And if the pain ends when you die
And I wonder if there was
Some better way to say goodbye
If you liked that song I’d recommend you find the studio version because it’s simply gutting with full sound – ie: bass and a bit more instrumentation, and of course you get PG’s full vocals. So what does that all have to do with the image above? Well the lyrics remind me of a couple friends I’ve lost over the years and the image above – the weightless woman – reminds me of some dreams I’ve had where I’ve died and started floating over a room. So it’s a pretty loose connection, but from where I stand that is all that’s required.
Somewhat unrelated:
How many of you out there use iTunes? If not, what do you use? Does it have the ability to subscribe to podcasts?
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