January 7, 2011
As a poet/songwriter my passions sit inside the marks Gordon Lightfoot left on American culture; less rhyming and timing and more Wreck of the Edmunds Fitzgerald. Storytelling warms the ambition, the inner visual that listeners rarely touch unless provoked to physically listen beyond sound. In radio we call it theater of the mind.
During John Lennon’s last interview he discussed how difficult it was to write music. The pieces of poetry left to dry from Double Fantasy took five years to incubate while songs like Good Morning, Good Morning from Sgt Pepper were pressured out of him inside a week’s time.
“I don’t know how to play,” John explained, “Paul was the one that invited the fun.”
John saw music as art while bravely unveiling what happens to the kindest people when the choice is to leave it inside and not share it with a passerby, “A man wants to take a brush and paint his daughters image on a giant canvas; she lives several miles from home and yet his love for her is unforgettably strong. An unexpected death silences the journey and nobody not even the daughter sees the art that which he held inside.”
The song Beautiful Boy from Lennon was written about his son Sean, “I had to make a choice; walk outside and play ball with my son or paint a photograph that Sean could hold forever.”
The images a singer/songwriter pours into the empty cups of our everyday are lost due to song hooks that invite listeners away from the message. It’s too easy to borrow our own interpretation; producers, managers and moneymakers collaborate everyday to seize control of the next melody this nation will hum. To think heart ache tonight, a heart ache tonight is the only part of the Eagles song we carry with us into the grocery store is nothing more than a curve ball in an imaginary baseball game.
Paul Stanley of KISS and I discussed for several minutes the art of being accepted in a gallery; the first step is believing in the vision the client has seen. Although a shade of red mixed with an overtone of lavender dotted with two glimpses of gold might have been the artist’s impression of depression, the purchaser might welcome it as the rainbow of hope that not only spoke to them but taught their feet to move to a safer path of recovery.
Who’s right? Or does there have to be an answer?
While visiting last week my sister Susan asked if I’d release control of one of my songs to her musician friend who found a deeper meaning. Whether it was ego talking or some form of protection; I quickly popped the song into the cd player explaining the story and reasons why the layout came into being. I wasn’t offended but only wanted to offer what Lennon explained in his final interview. I’m doing what’s required by making the music available for others to tap into but to release control is an avenue not yet visited. She can record it but to call it her own made me feel uncomfortable.
Up next on the session front is a piece Alan peacefully put into motion on the guitar asking me to invite the presence of a storyline connected to these two sentence: and it turned so slow; and it hurt so bad. What fell from the tip of my writing instrument embraces love from what I call the silent wolf point of living life. We watch father's and son's locate unbreakable connections and then one day part of the music passes. It was deeply inspired by a good friends most recently loss. Interestingly enough he'll probably never hear the song the way it was meant to be written.
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