Genesis

More and more, I see the benefit in keeping my eyes and ears open.

Song titles, song subjects, songs lyrics, song music, can come from anywhere at anytime.

For example, here's a list of the songs on the BRB album and my recollection of the genesis of each: 

Nothing's Changed: Lyrics cribbed from an old song I scrapped (entitled "The Dark Before the Dawn"), music came from the sky.

Revenant: Title and lyrical subject was "Word of the Day" on TV monitor on elevator in Prudential Building, music is the love child of Annie Lennox and Smashing Pumpkins.

Darkness: Music was attempt to rip off single on recent Jane's Addiction album.

Four Words: Lyrics are based on an apocryphal story I heard from my friend Ben about Ernest Hemingway committing suicide.

Bombs Away: Stole title from a song by a local band I saw live one night at a local club. The band contains several guys with whom I went to high school. Lyrical genesis comes from the liner-notes to the first Magnolia Electric Company album. Music came about by taking a riff from an old Blue New World song, Hold On Tight, and speeding it up.

Fallout Grace: Title tips the hat to Jeff Buckley. Lyrics are half new, half from an old tune that wasn't ready for prime time. Music began as an attempt to replicate the two chord simplicity of the first song on the latest Wilco album.

The Soft Drown: Title and idea stolen from some interview with someone I read somewhere.

Mermaid: Entire chorus sprung from my head like Athena from the head of Zeus while sitting next to a pool reading Seamus Haney's translation of Beowolf in Puerto Rico 4 years ago. Verse lyrics attempt to preserve alliteration of Beowolf. Music is an amalgamation of Paul Simon's Cool River and Nil Lara's Fighting for Your Love. End riff and lyrics spewed forth in one burst of inspiration. Song took nearly 6 months to complete.

Seraphim do Mar: Strangely, title is an adaptation of the name of someone I worked with at Baker & McKenzie and saw on a piece of correspondence. Music is an ode to our friends Stylus.

 ******

So these songs are all over the map in terms of where they came from. So why am I writing about this? Today I had one of those bizarre genesis moments when I picked up a graphic novel written by Neil Gaiman. Actually, my sister gave me this graphic novel for my birthday last week. The collection of stories is part of the Sandman series and is entitled Fables and Reflections.

I was just scanning the introduction (was I reading in the bathroom you ask? Maybe.), which contained a brief story called "Fear of Falling." The story ends with the line "Sometimes when you fall, you fly." I had just stumbled into a beautiful little delicate chord progression in Dropped D tuning, something akin to the Iron and Wine album I just bought last week, and was looking for something to sing about.

The whole notion of taking a fall and turning it into flight, struck me, and I jotted down the phrase "Why You Need to Fall." Those words happened to fit perfectly with the last five notes of the chorus chords I had written. So I started brainstorming some verse lyrics with little luck. Frustrated, I decided to take a jog to clear my head. Four miles later, I had composed the following verse and chorus, tweaking the title slightly.

WHY YOU HAD TO FALL You struggled for words And when you spoke, nobody heard How the night bloodied your brown eyes And left your pillow a blackened sky It will come clear Why you had to fall

So just picking up this graphic novel my sister happened to buy for me led to the idea for what I think will turn out to be a really special, delicate little song, perhaps for BRB, perhaps just for me to play acoustic. All the music is written, the bridge is conceived of and will contain the phrase "Sometimes you fly," also taken from the book.

All is need is another verse and to iron out and finish the bridge and arrangement.

Better go find someone else to rip off...

jbg