The quiet despair (and hope) of a songwriter

personal in Every way

Songwriting involves two things that I had never given much thought to: Firstly, it is a very personal thing, which, if the song is not good, or if you are not successful, makes you feel very much like a personal failure. This is not a failure of your co-writers, or producers, or engineers, or friends, or family. The buck stops at you. And you feel utterly deflated and miserable about it.

everything plus the kitchen sink

Secondly, songs are like little memoirs or confessions. They involve all of your life: your experience, your emotions, your self-image, your values, philosophies, knowledge, skills, your take on the world…It all comes out when you write, and faking it just doesn’t work. You only sabotage yourself when you copy, imitate, pretend, get superficial, or re-use someone else’s stuff. The end result is usually just…bad.

What you, the songwriter, has to deal with, is this existential despair that results from a basic conflict in aims. In order to be good at this, you must go deep into yourself, and write about that, and then be prepared for the depression that could come from remembering and dealing with what you may not have wanted to. And the disappointment if, even after all that effort, the song is a flop.

You are basically ripping out your own guts with both hands, putting your heart on display like some kind of primitive offering to the gods, and hoping for the best.

Is there an up-side?

Is it some kind of madness to keep doing it? Well, to be honest, I did not know it would be this way when I started out. The penny did not drop immediately. It was a long, slow, process of recognition and understanding. The unpleasant side of this is balanced out by the sense of achievement and joy that you get when the song does work out. That feeling is very intense, and absolutely addictive. You want a serotonin flood? Write a good song and hear it back for the first time. Wow. Better than any drug.

One more reason

Apart from that, there is one more reason for going through this transformation process as an artist and as a human: The author Kurt Vonnegut (writer of the famous anti-war novel “Slaughterhouse-Five”), explained it beautifully in a letter that he wrote to a class of English students at Xavier High School in New York City, in 2006, when he was 84 years old. The children had written to him as an assignment from their teacher. He died just six months after he sent them this letter in response.

A LETTER FROM KURT VONNEGUT

“I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to whit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood [the class’s teacher], and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.”

A thought to hold on to

Isn’t that a wonderful idea? Just do it, to find out what’s inside you? To make your soul grow?

That’s why I keep doing it. My song-writing partner has been trying to get this into my head for ages – that it’s OK to make a mess, to screw up, to get it wrong. But learn from your mistakes, fix things, do it over, try again. And again. And again. Keep creating. And when you do, you’ll find out what’s inside you. He got it, ages ago. I’m still getting my head around it.

Write a six-line poem, Mr. Vonnegut? Just like that? OK, let me try (no edits to this one, I’m doing it live in WordPress, and no fixing up afterwards either):

Six lines for Kurt Vonnegut (& Sean)

---