Thursday, January 30, 2014

Reflections on the process #1

I've decided that I will use this blog mainly for the following: musical stuff and off-grid things.  Yes, that's it: things and stuff.  More personal blather stays on FB.

So in keeping with this, I figured I'd copy what I posted to FB this AM, just to get the ball rolling.


"The majority of the songs I have written over the years are "head" songs...songs with a message of one sort or another. I have tasked myself with coming up with 2 albums: one from the head and one from the heart. The former has been a mix of older material and some newer stuff that has been floating around in my brain for a while, but the "heart" album is mostly newer songs...songs of an artist contemplating both his own life and the world around him, but for the latter in a non-polemic manner...more the feelings that arise about that world.

I don't think I've ever had an artistic birth process quite like this one...the "heart" album has been pummeling me on an emotional level like no other album I've ever recorded. Some of my best songs are coming out of the process, but my god what a process it is being.

I woke up two hours ago with that tell-tale sense of urgency that informs me that a song is ready to be written and won't let me have any more rest until I give life to it. I pick up my guitar and the chords are just right there. Vocal melodies already flowing out of me, I put pen to paper and these words just appear in front of me like automatic writing.

That was the easy part.

I have never had a song feel like this before. It is like someone took my heart and soul, stuck them in a blender, pureed them, took the resultant semi-solid mix and encased it in a tight container lined with razor-sharp spikes, and set it rolling down a very steep and bumpy hill.

I think this damn song wants to kill me. Talk about suffering for your art. Jeebus... 

OK...fine...I've written about 3/4's of you...let me be for a bit please. Please?"