I think that i’m under the impression that if i keep writing, something good might come out. Funny, eh? Do you know what amazes me? Arrangements. While i am always amazed at a solo guitarist’s ability to hold the stage with a single instrument, by that same token a well arranged rock band can totally awe me. I have trouble focusing on the fact that each instrumentalist has their own function, their own independent role in the creation of a song. I’m not much for arranging, seeing as it’s usually just me and my guitar, but my sudden fluency in the studio has left all of my songs open for additional parts.
But, it’s not so easy. Sure, i could layer on tracks of bass playing the root of the chord and guitars playing riffs in the same fashion, but arrangements that truly stun me add something with every part they introduce. A terrific example of this is “Goodbye Sky Harbor” at the end of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity. The song is 16 minutes long, but essentially for the latter dozen minutes the band just repeats a single figure. It start with drums and guitars, and slowly a vocal comes in, and by the time you’re well on the other side of the 10 minute mark the guitars fade away leaving you with just a chorus of voices repeating the same pattern over and over. Eventually a new drum loop is introduced that has nothing to do with the one before it, and you realize that you’re not really listening to the same song – except it is the same song because everything you’re hearing emerged from what came before.
That’s the point of arrangements. Arrangements for my songs should be so that you can take away everything except a backing vocal and a bass and then build a different but familiar song back up from them. Those are the arrangements that feel like more than just a backing band plugging away at roots and downbeats. I’ll have to give it a try…
songwriting
Ironically (in the shadow of my interaction with Patti Rothberg’s guitarist), “Splinter” is a song written totally under the influence of Patti’s music – the passing chords and mix of suspended and add chords are a technique taken verbatim from her new album. Funny, huh? I think this whole day is funny…
There’s a Tori Amos song from Boys for Pele called “Marianne” that is a partially fictionalized account of a girl that Tori used to be good friends with. The song portrays Marianne as a suicide, but to hear Tori tell the story she was just a beautiful girl who was too engrossed with the wrong people and eventually succumbed to some sort of overdose while she was still in highschool.
Recently a large discussion on Precious Things erupted over the details of the situation … people wanted to know who Marianne really was. While their interest was rather non-threatening at first, some members of the community kept on pushing … when the overdose was mentioned by someone who is familiar with Tori’s hometown community some people immediately wanted to know what the overdose was on and the circumstances it was under, and i found myself thinking … Is that fair? It’s none of our business who this girl was, and we only know anything about it because Tori decided to divulge something about her so that the song could be viewed fully in the context of what occurred in actual life. But, just because Tori wrote a song about Marianne doesn’t make her life public record, despite what some of the more obsessive fans seem to be thinking.
It’s like… i’m reading a book about a woman that Goethe wrote a novel about, and it’s all about how everyone hounds her over forty years later because of what they assume her to be from Goethe’s work, when she never intended to be written about in the first place. It’s one thing to open yourself to close examination by making yourself famous, but that doesn’t give the public a right to scour your entire life for the people who have motivated and inspired you – and to impose upon them similar treatment. It’s not quite the same with someone who’s passed away, because they don’t have to endure the inquisitive public but they do have to suffer the constant pressure against the memories people have of them.
I don’t mind the plotting out of my own Behind the Music, but i don’t know if i’m comfortable with the idea that every album of songs i write opens up the door for someone to track down the person they’re about decades later… it’s especially unfair when that person doesn’t even know what sort of inspiration they’re causing. Oh well… something for all of you overly chatty storyteller songwriters to think about…
Anyhow, “Other Plans” seems to be once again aspiring to be a kinder gentler version of Ani DiFranco’s “Gravel,” which is somewhat amusing to me since i wrote it while listening to “Untouchable Face,” whose chorus is a littany of “Fuck You.” Yep… and this is the “kindler gentler” song…
For some reason “Other Plans” decided to make a comeback today. I must have played it three times to every one repetition of any newer stuff.
It’s funny how i can never tell which of my older songs i’ll develop a sudden interest in; for a while there “Bridge” was the be-all end-all of my musical life, but suddenly (on it’s two-year anniversary, i might add) it has become rather unappealing and i’ve moved on to the next big hit in my discography. Even more frightening: June marks the three-year birthday of “World in My Hand.” Jesus H Christ… my songs are getting old. Watching your own children grow up couldn’t be any worse … because at least children can change and evolve on their own. Songs…. songs just sit there and look all depressed until you do something new to them. Like a discarded rubiks cube. Sometimes you can stare at one of those things for hours and get nowhere, but other times you just pick it up and get halfway to the solution.
Of course… i’ve never solved a rubiks cub – what does that have to say about my little songwriting analogy?