Misc. Filing

File this one under the category "Apocryphal Stories about Artists." 'Cause you have a file for that, I'm sure. I remember hearing that Tennessee Williams would get up and write from 5am to 7am every day, regardless of where he'd been the night before (a bar) or where he had to go that day (often to a day job).

Now... do you think there were times he stayed in bed and slept off his drunkenness? I would say so. But the point is... work ethic. Craft. Regimentation. Discipline. I've been hung up the last few weeks thinking about art and specifically songwriting as a craft. I've really been struggling with finishing songs... a lot of good ideas, a lot of things I like, but few complete songs.

And I realized that I just haven't been putting in the cold hard time to finish these ideas. Which is frustrating. So this week, I decided to really focus and grab every little bit of time I could towards writing and practicing. It helped that on Tuesday at rehearsal we put together a new song, St. Scarlet, which I'd had lying around for a bit. I wasn't sure if St. Scarlet was any good, but we nailed down a strong arrangement almost immediately, managing to incorporate a number of elements we haven't really used in previous songs.

So that fact helped me take the rest of Tuesday and yesterday to really hone a couple of other songs and the results have been good. Tuesday night especially, I stayed up until about 2 woodshedding lyrics and working on a tune called "You Were." Even fell asleep basically sitting up with my pen in my songbook.

And Wednesday, I did my best Tennessee Williams impersonation (including a hangover) and got up early before work to try to crystallize "You Were." It worked. On my train ride home from work yesterday, I sketched out the words for the bridge and then started working through the entire tune tweaking the lyrics. And the beauty of songwriting is that, just by doing it, just by having a guitar in your hands and by getting words out onto the page, you often wind up with new ideas that aren't necessarily good for the particular song you're working on, but might inspire a new song or a new idea. So it's been a good week so far. The results...

YOU WERE So I'll try and stay At least until the dawn Until the stars give way And the dark is gone And when I leave you in the morning I'll always think of how You were You were And how the light embraced you while you breathed The songs I wrote for you Won't see the light of day They're just ghosts in blue That rise and float away But if I catch one in the morning I'll always sing of how You were You were And how the light embraced you while you breathed (bridge) The ending came without a warning But I've never felt so sure That if I catch you in the morning You'll still be just as You were As you were As you were As you were

jbg

p.s. Happy anniversary to my mom and dad... 37 years! Holy crap, that's impressive.