Digging

I've said it before and I'll say it again... like right now: writing is weird. Like sometimes you feel like you are just digging and digging and getting nowhere. Nothing works, nothing is good, nothing is inspired. And then, in a flash, something crystalizes for you and all the digging, all the work, comes into focus and makes sense and... you have success.

Speaking of success, MTV recently used a good portion of the song Things We Would Rather Lose on the Real World DC. Which was huge for us. And because of this, I've been taken by the possibility that we will have the means to record our third album sooner than I had anticipated... like this summer. Which is awesome.

In January or so, I demoed and sent to Jay about a dozen tunes... most of them came from my morning writing sessions of 2009. I was definitely happy with the group, and was hoping it would yield maybe five songs strong enough to record, leaving me to write another ten or so from which we'd cull another five and have ten songs. My general ratio has been to write two songs from every one that we decide to record.

So I was surprised when Jay came back with a list of eight that he thought were record-worthy. Surprised and happy. One song, he wanted me to completely rewrite the lyrics, but other than that, there were just a couple notes on some arrangement ideas.

So... that meant that we were really only a couple tunes from having our record ready... which was great but also a bit scary. When you (I) start writing for a project, there are unlimited possibilities. I tend to just write and write until I start to see themes develop organically... and then I grab the strongest and best organic themes, and start writing with those in mind. I think I've mentioned that I was waiting and waiting for this record to turn the corner and reveal the organic themes... develop some kind of creative inertia... and it just hadn't happened. I was happy with all the songs Jay picked, but the writing had all come with a lot of effort, a lot of deliberate effort.

This was not Look Alive or Things We Would Rather Lose where I seemed to be sweating songs out on a daily basis... choruses lingered for months, verses were crossed out and restarted... bridges were reverted to and then rewritten completely... It had been a frustrating and difficult time getting to the point of even having these eight songs... so I set into rewriting the one song, and pushing out a couple more to get to ten...

Then, an interesting thing happened: (I don't know why I ever doubt that it will... if you keep plugging away at creating, even when it feels like you're getting nowhere, you will eventually be rewarded with clarity... or something) the rewrite went incredibly well. I HATE rewriting on a large scale... or rather, I'm not very good at it: I usually take or leave the bulk of what I first write for a song, and if it's not good, I scrap it for parts.

But with this song, Lonesome Sound... I really felt like I nailed it. And really processed and responded to the feedback Jay had given me. After that (or during that), I finished the song Smoke and Ash, which I wrote about in my last post. The chorus had been hanging around and attached to no fewer than four songs... and I finally dialed in the right one... and I love the tone and the lyrical content... it was a little darker and moodier than the other songs, but still not depressing... just some added emotional weight to a group of songs that is largely positive, hopeful, and even playful at times.

Somewhat poetically right at this time, I lost my voice for about two weeks: a nasty sinus infection abetted by my stereotypically male tendency to avoid going to the doctor... the lesson? Antibiotics are good.

Anyway, I lost my voice and was stuck doing a lot of writing without a guitar in my hands. And I wrote this chorus (it really just kind of came to me in the middle of the day, nowhere near a guitar):

Do the echoes ever keep you up at night? Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right? It's okay to still have fading days I know you do

And what was more, I could hear the melody, the chords... I could hear the background singers... everything. It just popped into my head fully-formed like a reverse-Athena (natch). When that happens, you take notice. So I set about writing the rest with the idea that this was it: this was the last song of the record, and this needed to tie the whole thing together.

But no pressure...

Surprisingly, most of it came out very very quickly... and I was down to about six lines of lyrics to finish: a few in the verses and a bridge. And again, walking out of the gym one day last week, the bridge lyrics kind of just floated into my head and I had to scramble to write them down on my parking ticket.

And it was done.

Later that night, I sat in my living room and played all 10 songs for Andrea (and Tuman and Hendrix) and... well, I'm really really happy with them. I demoed the rewrite and the two new songs and sent them to Jay and, pending his comments, we should be ready to think about recording.

As I played through the songs, I was struck by one line in particular... in the first song I wrote in my morning writing sessions (called Dirty Engine), there's a line that goes "The days of easy love are gone/We're going to have to dig a little deeper"... and that line, in so many ways, is the message of the record. Emotionally, creatively, personally... dig a little deeper.

And I've been digging and digging and digging for me, for us, for PA... And it's paying off.

jbg

Smoke and Ash

Writing is so weird... creating is weird. The variety of ways you can get to where you need to be on any particular piece of creativity... you just never know how it's going to unfold, what the end result will be, and how it will relate to where you started and what you intended when you started.

In general, I find it's just best to as open to the possibilities as possible... work hard, be honest... be ready for anything. I finished writing (really, rewriting) a song last week and was curious as to when I had first started experimenting with the chorus... I knew it had been around for awhile and gone through (at least) two completely separate versions and several other false starts. According to my writing book, I first jotted down the words to the chorus in April of 2009... so about 10 months before I finally hit upon the "right" setting for them.

In between, I can trace the evolution (and de-evoluation) of the song until last week... truly a bizarre map... But... all's well that ends well. So...

SMOKE AND ASH Is this any way to live? Filling the silences with words poured through a sieve Into your heart Until it pulls apart Is this any way to die? Falling into days until we close our eyes And moving on And moving on No it's not okay if you go And go fading away into smoke And ash from fires we'll always regret Is this any way to be? Sorting through photographs and dreaming of the sea And who we were So unsure Is this any way to try? We pack up boxes and stack them to the sky To build a wall Until they all fall No it's not okay if you go And go fading away into smoke And ash from fires we'll always regret

jbg

Of Cats and Men

We got a Cat, a six month old male adopted from PAWS... he is, as yet, unnamed... he came with the name Bandit, but it doesn't suit his character and we haven't hit upon a good moniker.

He and the dog have gotten off to a pretty good start... Hendrix has been remarkably sweet and tolerant, and Cat is already showing signs of warming up to Hendrix... Adding a new animal to the 2010 mix has been an interesting twist... we have so much going on that we were unfazed when Cat's initial vet visit revealed he had a common parasite... the treatment was 5 days of oral medication followed by a bath... somewhat surprisingly, the oral medication administration was way more trying than the bath. 

Now that the medical trauma is (hopefully) over, we need a name...

Stay tuned.

J

Hope

Life is strange.

The winter solstice... 3 years ago yesterday I heard the first inkling of what Paper Arrows would become... a rough mix of the radically reworked Look Alive.

This winter solstice was my first day in a new life... a life completely rooted in playing and teaching music.

I have a lot more to say about that and a host of other things...

I hope this new life will allow me to write a bit more often here... 

I hope 2010 will be as wonderful and exciting as it seems like it will be.

I... hope.

XO

j

Echo in Disguise

You're never alone if you've got me So let's fly to the coast and sleep on the sea I opened my eyes and saw you were there Reading the news and breathing the air I am paralyzed An echo in disguise That's alright What you say, I'll say (You say, I say) Word by word Day by day by day...

jbg