Tag Archives: songwriting

Usual Rubbish

Strange gravity.

I don’t know, man. That song seems kind of dark. Dark, but in a happy way. Yeah … that’s the way we do it around here, am I right? No … that was a rhetorical question. Never mind.

Oh, hello. It’s your old pal Bozo. I mean, Joe-zo. (That might have been my clown name if I had chosen another, slightly divergent path in life, but I digress.) Having a little band meeting here. Joe? Present. Matt? Present. Marvin (my personal robot assistant)? Present, to the extent that an automaton can ever be TRULY present, but setting philosophical questions aside … Mitch Macaphee? Not present. Actually, in truth it’s just me and Matt, and the topic is songwriting.

It goes like this. He’s got songs, I’ve got songs … all God’s children got songs. That said, they’re all based on subject matter that’s, well, a little dark. Dark matter, if you will. Now, it’s not surprising that we would use the stuff that makes up the bulk of the universe as the substance of our songs. You never lack for material.  Even so, songwriting can be a lot like pulling teeth … except the pay isn’t nearly as good. And either way you go, somebody ends up toothless. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. Aye aye, sir.

I don't see any dark matter. Oh ... right.Well, I’ve wandered a bit. But the point I’m trying to get to is this: we tend to write happy little songs about big nasty things. This month we appear to be back on the fascist beat again. Next month, who knows? Some other grave subject matter that can be turned into a nursery rhyme or a mambo. That’s the way it works round these parts. Those are our principles. And if you don’t like them … we have other principles. (Yes, I’m a Marxist. My favorite is Groucho, but it’s not a strong preference.)

Speaking of work, it has been nearly forever since our last THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. I just want to assure our five listeners that, yes, we will post more episodes this fall and, yes, they will be ridiculous. It’s been a busy year, folks. I’d explain why, but I’ve got too much to do right now. Excuses, excuses, right? Sheesh.

Usual Rubbish

New step.

Huh. Never saw THAT one before. Do that again, Anti Lincoln. Wow. Are you sure that was developed in the 1850s? It looks a little post modern to me.

Ah, readers. Greetings. Here’s a handy tip: You know you have waaaay too much time on your hands when you spend a perfectly good afternoon listening to the antimatter 16th president explain that po-mo was invented by General McClellan. For chrissake … everybody knows it didn’t emerge until the later on in the Grant administration. I’ll tell you, in Anti Lincoln’s tiny mind, history is a total confidence game. If he were the actual Great Emancipator (or Posi-Lincoln, as it were), he would understand the importance of history. Posi-Lincoln loved history more than chicken fricassee. (And he loved chicken fricassee.)

We’re still in songwriting mode over here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in upstate New York. Every day I pick up my superannuated acoustic guitar and start strumming the five chords I learned as a teenager, hoping to coax another number out of them. How many possible combinations are there? I’m going to find out! Note: if you know the answer to this eternal question, put it in the comments. I’m sure it involves some kind of advanced mathematical calculation that is considerably beyond my ken. Though why I’m always asking Ken to figure stuff out for me I don’t know.

Is that a trombone, man?Of course, it’s not like it was in the old days. Way back then, we would write songs the old-fashioned way: by knocking branches against rocks for a few hours, then scratching the changes out in the dirt floor of our primitive caves. A little later on, the trombone was invented, though that was of little utility since none of us actually plays the trombone. (True story: Every time Matt tries to play trombone, he loses a tooth … which is just another way of saying that he only has a limited number of plays in him.) No, it wasn’t until the discovery of the Lowery Organ that we began to move forward expeditiously into an era of serious songwriting. Then we got silly. Super silly.

The rest is history, folks. You can read all about it right here. Now, back to that new dance step. And a one, and a two …

Usual Rubbish

Strum and dang.

Let’s see …. how does the barre system go again? Oh, right. It’s freaking impossible. Forgot that part. Back to the banjo chords then. I wonder how good songwriters handle questions like this.

Yes, if you haven’t already guessed, I’m attempting to write some songs this week. Well, I should say one song, but that’s being somewhat generous. I can’t let Matt carry the entire burden of composing for Big Green. What kind of brother would that make me? I’ll tell you what kind. My kind, that’s what. Just STAY OUT OF IT. Anyway … that’s why I’m handling this guitar. Notice I didn’t say “playing”. That’s a bridge too far … and this song of mine doesn’t even have a bridge.

Frankly, I don’t see how Matt does it. He dreams up these songs, harmonizes them in about twenty minutes down in the basement of the Cheney Hammer Mill, then tracks the suckers. Me? I get some lame idea, knock it around in my head for a couple of days, and then either the lyrics come all at once or they drop from the sky in fragments, sometimes six months, sometimes a year apart. In some instances I do songwriting at a glacial pace. You can actually watch me evolve during the course of writing a single song. (When I wrote the first verse, I was an Australopithecus. Now look at me! Definitely Peking man.}

Okay, hit "record" or whatever.So, if I’m treating every songwriting project like the evolutionary ascent of man, that amounts to a lot of banjo-plucking primates. And that’s where many of my songs start out. I’ll find a chair somewhere in this big old barn of a place, throw my cheap-seat Martin D-1 across my leg and start playing the five chords I know best. If I stumble upon some progression or melody worth repeating, I can’t rely on memory alone. Fortunately, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has an audio recording module, and if I can get him to stand still long enough, I can capture whatever the hell it is I’m working on and play it back later. If it happens in the middle of the night,  the playback sounds like …. you guessed it …. banjo-plucking primates.

Hey, we all have our process. That’s what makes us human, right? Doing dumb shit, then figuring out how to improve on a bad thing. That’s the Big Green way.