Hi. Whatcha doing today? You're sitting there wanting to be a songwriter, aren't you? I knew it.
Maybe you were at yesterday's
SLAM rally in Melbourne, or you saw it on the news, and now you're thinking to yourself: 'All I want to be is A MUSICIAN! They seem clever and good-looking and they're just so passionate about what they believe in!'
Well, I don't blame you. They are all of those things and more—sometimes, they're even alcoholics, too. Off you go then and become a musician with my blessing!
Hey, but hang on a minute, pardner! There's just one thing! WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT?
I'm here today to help you with that. But first, let me share a little something I found on
this inspirational songwriting site from a young girl named Katie who just possibly might be a little like you:
'I'm Katie. You'll probably know me from my first project, "Chasing Quaffles", which is a Wizard Rock band. I'm still going strong in that band, but I thought I'd branch out to Twilight fans as well.
I absolutely love Stephenie Meyer's books and I can honestly say they've inspired me to write some pretty amazing pieces of music.'
She adds:
'Seriously, there are some things that only Twilight fans would understand. And this is one of them.'
I admit, I don't understand it. So what if you, like me, aren't a
Twilight fan either? You must be feeling pretty isolated and alone because you won't understand Katie's desire to write songs about the
Twilight books.
But don't worry! Because feeling isolated and alone is the ideal emotional state for songwriting. Let's go!
THE SONGWRITING SECRET REVEALED!
As Katie knows all too well, THE GREAT SECRET OF HOW TO WRITE AMAZING SONGS is to base them on books. Easy!
There are many examples of this, but here are some of my favourites.
1. Heathcliff, it's me, it's Cathy
Most of you are thinking that I conceived this entire post just so I could put an enormous picture of Kate Bush at the top of it (see above), and you're absolutely right. Here's another one:
But there's another good reason for using her photo today. If there is any person on this entire earth who has taken one cultural artifact and reworked it into a song that has taken on the same artistic significance as the
book, it's her.
Bush wrote 'Wuthering Heights' when she was eighteen while she was sitting at her piano and looking out the window at the moon. That's pretty much all you need to know.
And I guarantee that reading Emily Bronte's 1847 book will blow your mind at least as much as watching this film clip:
INTERESTING BONUS FACT: Another song of Bush's, 'Cloudbusting', is also based on a book—Wilhelm Reich's
Book of Dreams.
2. It's pronounced 'Kam-moo'
The Cure's 'Killing an Arab' always comes up on lists like these, and who I am to ignore it. It's an excellent song based on an excellent book: Albert Camus's novel
The Outsider.
The book has inspired generations of broody, existentialists and is the sort of thing you can polish off in one apathetic weekend. And then you can have the rest of the week to go and write a song about it. Nothing stopping you except for your own intense melancholy then.
3. Severin, Severin
Have you ever not slept for nights at a time and kept yourself going purely by pouring endless litres of gravelly shiraz down your gullet and listening to The Velvet Underground until you don't know who you are anymore? I know I have.
So maybe you too, then, have sat there listening to 'Venus in Furs' over and over, wondering what in god's name Lou Reed is severing, severing, and why does it sound so amazingly
good?
And then you read the
book Venus in Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and it all suddenly becomes clear that Severin is the main character in this book and you will never look at leather goods in quite the same way again.
4. What do Cats and PJ Harvey have in common?
I have an excellent track record of trying to weave in a random and irrelevant reference to PJ Harvey on this blog wherever possible, and I'd just like to say that I'm totally delighted to be able to link her in again today.
The other day I was blithely leafing through TS Eliot's book of poetry,
Four Quartets, and there, in black and white, were some of the lyrics to Harvey's single 'When Under Ether', from her 2007 album
White Chalk.
My first reaction was of course that TS Eliot had stolen the words from PJ Harvey, and then I realised that—just like that other great songwriter
Andrew Lloyd Webber before her—Harvey had used Eliot's poetry as inspiration.
If you missed this album may I suggest you go and buy it immediately. In the meantime, here's the song:
5. I'm sick of sittin' round here trying to write this book
Do you ever sit around listening to Bruce Springsteen (yes!) and there you are, listening to
'Dancing in the Dark' on repeat (yes!) and staring at pictures of him (yes!) and while you're staring and staring and staring (yes! yes! yes!) you realise: Not only was Bruce a remarkably good-looking man in his day, but by god, he must also have been A BIT OF A READER?!
'The Ghost of Tom Joad' by Bruce Springsteen is a song based on
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Rage Against the Machine have covered it, and Steinbeck's novel also inspired a song by Woody Guthrie.
I don't need to say anything else about this because Springsteen can speak for himself. Just get into him.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you're interested in this relationship between writing and music, music and writing, there is a terrific monthly event at the newly-opened
Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne, called 'The Writer's Mix Tape'. The event is free; I went to one last night and it was fascinating and fun.
Thanks for listening and HAPPY SONGWRITING. And if any of you come up with a catchy melody to put
War and Peace to, I'd really love to hear it.