Feb 6, 2009

Leonard Cohen says that writing songs is a matter of blackening pages.   You start off with a blank page, and run your hand from left to right with a pen and, viola!  A blackened page.  
I started reading the Artist's Way again today and two quotes from Julia Cameron stuck out for me.  "For me, the trick [of writing] was always getting past the fear and onto the page."  And "Writing became more like eavesdropping and less like inventing a nuclear bomb."  
At it's best, song a days are like both those things.  Outrunning fear and eavesdropping at the same time.   Maybe it's a bit like taking a jog while listening to an Ipod.  There's definitely a lot of trust in the process when things go well.   I was waiting for that to happen all day while blackening pages this afternoon. 

Here's what a blank page looks like for me on GarageBand:



My friend Steven just moved into our Apt for the next month this afternoon and for a couple of hours I let him distract me from the task of songwriting this afternoon.   I was pretty much in 'stare at the screen/page' mode anyway.  Process, process, process.   We ended up grabbing dinner at the Burren and then I wandered over to Diesel around 8:00 to sit down write something I could put a melody too.   I found a seat in the back where a group of code geeks and crossdressers was gathered.   They struck me as looking a bit circus like.   The song I wanted to write, but couldn't quite get my mind around this evening, would have used the circus as a metaphor for the insecurities we all carry, making the circus folk the heros because they've turned their insecurites into assets.   That song may still be in coming some day.   In the meantime, here's what showed up:

They came into town
In harlequin red
Riding on Elephants, horses and bears
I bought my ticket
Into the fun house
And the bearded lady, she caught me there

I’ve got to escape
I’ve got to escape
I”ve got to escape
From the Circus

On the Road now
For forty days
The puts me in the cannon act
They keep me in chains
As the wild mans child
Until I hear the cannon wheels crack

My old friend bill
He found me there
The had a plan to set me free
We’ll pack in the gun powder
Tight as a purse
And aim the cannon out to sea.

Here's what a blackened page looks like on GarageBand, woo hoo!