When I was teaching writing, I worked at cultivating the habit of writing in my students. I’d say to them, “writers write—so start writing.” Not necessarily profound, but really: you want to write, so in order to start the flow of words, you need to prime the pump.
Countless people who have dreamed of playing guitar often never start with something as basic at what I wrote above. Rather than writing, you need to begin playing—every single day! How do I know this? Because I’ve taken that advice and parlayed it into guitar skills that while they aren’t steeped in virtuosity—they serve their purpose and allow me to write songs and then, play them. How much more do you need?
I’m a fan of The Hold Steady and the songwriting of Craig Finn. For my money, he’s as good as anyone writing in the rock medium. His songs flesh out stories about characters like hoodrats (“Your Little Hoodrat Friend”) and women with migraines that bet successfully on horses (“Chips Ahoy”).
Finn is a proponent of the daily writing habit. That’s what he lives by as a songwriter. If it’s good enough for Finn, it’s good enough for me and anyone else who wants to write songs.
While I’m no Craig Finn, I have written more than 20 songs over the past 16 months, or so. I just wrote another one last night.
Songwriters such as Finn, mine the experiences from his life for fodder that become the lyrics of his songs. I used an incident that happened last week to craft the lyrics and then the progression that became “Broken Little Bird.”
Tuesday morning, prior to jumping on the phones—my source of shekels and keeping ahead of the bills—listening to Finn and his band. I had ideas of where I wanted to go with “Broken Bird,” but knew I was still short of it. Lunch was spent fiddling with lyrics and moving verses around, wolfing down some Annie Chung KungPao. By the end of the day, I had the song framework I wanted. Thanks, Craig!
After writing it on my acoustic, I thought I’d fiddle around playing it on my Danelectro last night in the basement. Danny is my “Fender” and his tone is what I was aiming for. I located a drum track that was perfect and I started the sound recorder on my phone. My rough mix prior to breakfast, and here you have it. Song-making in 48 hours from JimBaumerMe.
Oh, and that person who after 15 years walked away with two sentences in an email: you’re simply song fodder.
