Song Writing

After hearing some of our music, someone suggested that the Lovely Carla and I should teach people how to write songs. I think they meant it as a compliment. This is exactly the kind of thing I recoil from (or should I say, this is exactly the kind of thing from which I recoil?).

I know songs are crafted things. Some songs are formulaic. Some notes and chords naturally go together.

You can study great songs (for instance get a Beatles chord book), and see how chords and notes and melody and harmony work together.

But for me song writing is kind of like...

imagining new cloud formations

drawing circles in a pond

catching smoke rings

riding a sunbeam

It is like another branch of magic. Too much thought and analysis of the process can kill it. And misses the actual thing entirely.

It's kind of like you can dissect a cat and catalogue all it's parts and then put it back together, but then you are left with a dead cat. I think what I love about music is like that too. The dissecting and cataloguing is one way to study, but then you are left with bits and pieces that don't really add up to that ineffable beauty and mystery of a perfectly realized song.