Tag Archives: songwriting

Never Alone

It’s Saturday. I’ve been updating this more than usual lately mostly because I feel like I can write here to a specific audience and not waste my breath trying to say these things elsewhere. At 31, I’m tired of trying to talk art to people who don’t give a fuck about art.

I finally finished a book my friend Kirsten recommended, “The Chronology of Water” by Lidia Yuknavitch. I’d read the acknowledgements while I was visiting her in Portland: “If you have ever fucked up in your life, or if the great river of sadness that runs through us all has touched you, then this book is for you.“

I knew after reading those lines I had to get the book. And I did. It just took me a while to finish. But I finally did last night. The last four chapters made me cry like a little baby.

I don’t like admitting that out loud. But it’s true.

The book is about the life of a woman (Yuknavitch) who comes from a (you guessed it) dysfunctional family. It’s not a poor-me story. It’s not a sequential story that goes from A to Z or explains the why of anything. It takes you on a ride. It makes you feel. It’s brutally honest, poignant and beautiful. I dog eared many pages.

I quote: “You have to forgive women like me. We don’t know any other way to do live than to throw our bodies at it. I was the kind of woman whose relationships were grenades and whose life became a series of car wrecks–anything to keep the girl I was and the girl I had–tiny daughter dolls–safe from this world.“

The book feels like a dedication to any sensitive souls out there who have lived hard lives, but are fucking strong in spite of it and perhaps because of it. Who have found a way to cope, some sort of peace in things like swimming or hiking or art, a way of being real that is constant, in spite of failed relationships and families and bumbling through years of our lives not knowing what the fuck or why.

We can write our own stories. We have that right.

The part that resonated with me the most?

“Listen, I can see you. If you are like me. You do not deserve what has happened or will. But there is something I can offer you. Whoever you are. Out there. As lonely as it gets, you are not alone. There is another kind of love.

It’s the love of art. Because I believe in art the way other people believe in god.“

When I read that part, I got chills up and down my skin. Because that’s exactly what the hell I’ve been trying to say here for years. I’m not alone, ever. Even if I think I am. I have my writing and I have my music. Somehow, these things transcend. These things are like church for me. When I get scattered and lost, I can come back to my art and find that thing I’m missing. But first, I have to sit down with my art. Again and again and again. And trust it. Trust the process. Trust that it matters and means something. And if it only means something to me, that is perfectly OK. But likely, if it means something to me, it will mean something to someone else.

And sometimes, I’m faking it. I’m saying, “I know you’re out there. I feel you.” But Yuknavitch also said: “I feel you,” and it got across to me. So. There’s hope. There’s power in believing, or fake believing. Sometimes these things actually do get across. We are all connected in this invisible web. If we knew how connected, we’d probably start quaking in our boots.

***

I’ve got another cold plague virus, joy of joys. Working at the public library is simply lovely for catching everything under the sun. Last night, I had a number of things I could have done with friends but instead I stayed in and finished “The Chronology of Water,” and watched a movie. Right before I went to bed, I listened to a recording of a new song I am writing.

I was outside on the patio looking at the stars, listening to my new song, all bundled up. In a moment of stillness and space, I got what I was trying to say in the song crystal clear.

A lot of times, my songs tell me what I’m feeling about something. I’m no good at the whole one on one, “This is how I feel” shit. It’s too forced. But this song kind of explained to me perfectly a situation I’m going through and where I stand on it. And it was a beautiful way to understand it, a way of reaching closure on a situation that may never in real life reach closure.

The point being that I’d sat down with my guitar and written something straight from my subconscious when I was feeling some ambiguous feeling a couple of days prior, thinking I’d never make sense of the situation and always be flip-flopping through analytical stuntedness in my head, and now here I was, listening back to it and understanding what I was going through, and that there was an ending of sorts.

I’m not sure if other musicians and writers have the same experience: Learning about themselves through their own songs. Epiphanies about their own feelings/conclusions based on what they’ve written. I’m sure they do, I’ve just not heard anyone talk about it.

It’s probably too weird.

But most of my life, I looked for other musicians and writers to tell me I was OK. That what I’d gone through in my life made me who I am. That my creations mattered and made sense. When really, the only musician/writer I needed validation from was right here. Inside me. Never alone. Always have my art.

How bizarre.

Pulling Music From The Air

If you feel a pull in the direction of the musical world, if your medium of choice is plucking melodies from the collective of ideas floating somewhere beyond the veil, and you manage to pull that indefinable thing out of the air and craft it into a living, breathing song that can then be played on a phone, in a computer, in a car, in headphones, on a stereo, in a room with other people or by yourself on an instrument of your choosing, it’s a feeling unlike any other.

My dad is funny. He, the classical pianist, who taught me to love music from the time I was born (age 2 found me screaming and pounding the stereo speakers when my parents turned off the music), texts me the other day and asks me if I’m finding myself in my music. “I spent a lot of time there…once…” he said, as if he is no longer a musician, as if after 53 years of playing piano it would simply vanish in thin air.

The music never goes away. Not if it’s in your bones. And you know if it’s in your bones, because you can feel the ache, the urge, that something indescribable that can only be manifested through the instrument of your choice–be it vocals, guitar, piano, violin, drums, bass, what have you. It screams to come out.

Many people ignore it calling them, they wrestle it into a tight knot, push it back into the deepest closet in the mustiest shed out back, but it never stops tugging at their guilt, calling faintly through the layers of duct tape wrapped around its mouth for them to come back.

I tried to put my music away, once. I was beaten down by life, had put all of my hopes into one thing and found that the one thing I wanted wasn’t really what I wanted, or was what I wanted, but wasn’t actually the real thing I was seeking.

(I’ve always loved earlier U2 because it’s not just music, it’s poetry to music. Combining two of my favorite arts.)

***

There are cesspools out there, sudden gaping pits in the tarmac of our personal highways with clawed hands that reach up and grab to trip us on our path. Before we know it, a whole decade has passed and yet, when we seek to find our true voice, the whispers are beckoning, softly, and if we listen, we’ll find ourselves back there where we began, only older, more world weary and afraid of making mistakes again, hesitant, naysaying, wondering if there is even a chance now that we are suddenly out of the invincible phase of earlier youth, knowing for certain that we are headed towards an inevitable death.

But I think while I’m still alive, there is time. I won’t stop trying to wrestle these songs out of the air into tangible form, if only for a small circle to enjoy, get something out of. It takes so long, the process is so tedious, but I feel like I should have been doing this all along, like I got lost in the last decade, my twenties were a wilderness tangle of dead end paths. I look back and I think, “What the hell did I even DO in my twenties?” Seems to me everything I’ve started doing with purpose, finally, slowly trudging this endless, but necessary uphill climb, has been recently.

In the end, I think that the person the art comes through is the one who changes the most, it uses them as a medium. I don’t know if the call or drive to create is innate or learned, I think it’s a little bit of both, like that idea we all have some sort of mission here, something I like to believe when I’m not being a doubting Thomas.

The thing that trips me up, always, is this. Why do we have these great urges to create, can see our potential, know what we’re capable of somewhere deep inside, but have to work so hard, for so many years, to get those visions to actually manifest (most of us)? Why do our creations always hover just out of reach, taunting us in the dead air space between perceived reality and the subconscious?

Can you tell I was in the studio all day tweaking songs? Jack Douglas, who produced John Lennon’s songs and currently works on Aerosmith’s songs was the teacher for the class at the college where I was given free studio time (it’s an exchange of studio time for the artist, and the process of recording is handled by newbies learning the ropes of music engineering, overseen by a competent engineer). Somehow, Douglas has managed to have a career in the industry for decades, and he still loves it. He was working 12 hours yesterday, and then off to teach a class, and then, he said, he was driving to LA that night. “Jeebus!” I said, “Is that where you live?” “No,” he said, “I live in New York.”

It was nice to have him there instructing the students, I always feel like my songs are in good hands when he’s overseeing the classes. Like I say, enjoy every moment, you never know when it will be your last.

Groveling, Poetry, What it All Means to Me

I always wanted this blog to be full of piss and vinegar. Witty, acerbic, profound, astounding.

I find lately that all I preach — follow your dreams, do what you love, be yourself — is easy in principal, but much harder in practice.

I can be the most idealistic parts of myself on this blog. I can try to motivate myself and others, I can interview people I admire. But behind the wizard of oz curtain, I am just as fed up as you. Continue reading →

Going Sideways

“I need to have the brain occupied for sure. You know, the brain canopy occupied at all times. Otherwise, I will go sideways.” — Johnny Depp

credit kate*

If you’re a songwriter, you know that no matter how unique you try to be, even if you spend all of your time in your bedroom writing said songs, you are still influenced by random shit around you. Continue reading →