It's great how you draw a parallel between yourself and Lily Allen with the idea that "You do it for yourself, but go hard enough and it speaks for others". And that listening to her music gave you a perspective on your own music.
I did NOT see the ending coming! Well done, old lady. ;) As an almost completely unknown songwriter, at age 62, I also have to guard against the pile of personal tropes/cliches in my songwriting attempts these days. I wrote a lot in my middle years. A lot of real life things seemed to have ruined the "writing streak." Now, I say to myself, "Nope, done that a million times before," or "Sorry, no more Brian Wilson piano-pounding," "let's not do Ray Davies descending bass lines," etc. Thinking back, though, the productive years had self-imposed rules, too. For instance, to be proper pop songs, each had to have three distinctive musically related sections. Boy, I ditched that in my old man years! Lucky to get two sections (verse/chorus). Sorry this has turned out to be about me. Just reaching for a connection with your thoughts.
Nearly all of rock and rock-related songwriting (more broadly Pop) is first person narrative ego driven. Apologies to Randy Newman and others in rock who work and play around with writing personae. However, it is Theater, Soundtrack music & song where the purpose of each song or piece of music is about advancing a larger narrative.
This recently rebroadcast segment on NPR looking at how Stephen Sondheim works (and plays) seems fortuitous to this ongoing internal meditation of songwriters and also broader and more social ongoing discourse:
"This episode of NPR’s Fresh Air, originally aired when a revival of Merrily We Roll Along was running at New York City Center, contains songs from that musical, as well as excerpts from multiple interviews with Sondheim about his career, compositional techniques, and musical influences."
"Listen, I Made a Hat"
"This eight-episode fan-produced podcast has some episodes devoted to in-depth coverage of individual musicals and others devoted to other topics, such as set design in musicals and an overview episode for those who don’t know as much as they’d like to about Sondheim."
"Steven Sondheim: The Story So Far"
"Each episode of this thirty-two-episode Masterworks Broadway podcast series discusses one musical or song from the Sondheim canon, with multiple guest stars per episode, including Sondheim himself, Bernadette Peters, Hal Prince, and Chita Rivera, along with many others. For those familiar with prominent Broadway actors, hearing about their experiences with Sondheim can be fascinating."
Such a different perspective than the rock world of frequently awesome flashes of breakthroughs in song-making forms and recording techniques. Something about the narrative functions of songs in the musical theater, perhaps the intimacy or potential for it, seems to have inspired those introverts drawn to playing and listening and brooding and ruminating to jazz.... Compositional Dreamers perhaps better known as recording studio artists and concert theatrical attractions whose works straddled many different radio formats such as Donny Hathaway
Or composer-arrangers and studio producers such as Allen Toussaint and elder New Orleans musical compositional stylistic sages such as Henry Roeland Byrd dba Professor Longhair.
Or improvisers of even classically - formed composer\players like Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Joanne Brackeen, Jaki Byard, Martha Argerich, Rickie Lee Jones, Laura Nyro even and especially the idiosyncratic stylists from cross-over classical-cabaret-theater-composers such as (if anybody is really even remotely similar to) the singular Nina Simone....or session playing arranger composers working somewhere near the skill set of Chicago's studio whiz and 1970's R&B producer-innovator Charles Stepney (production whiz of local ensemble Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton etc) or jazz-based composer-synthesists such as McCoy Tyner or Duke Pearson.
“Gimme a pig foot and a bottle of beer…” sang Bessie Smith back in the 30s. I do love Stephen Sondheim but that’s all getting a bit heady Mitch! I think blues and folk storytelling have a lot to do with it too.
Advancing every inter-personal and human encounter in whatever musical theater production Sondheim & his collaborators are writing & putting up on the boards is as pure a folk and storytelling venture as any cabaret, club, rock, pop, folk or gospel spotlight lit bit of floor or upon a well-lit stage. My whole point was trying to clear away hierarchies we impose through our necessarily limited life experiences aided and abetted by imagi-Nation....Bessie Smith moved many including me with her repertoire and I'm glad to have been born after recording technology was invented and put into use!
Also, the stage productions, one especially effective here in Portland, Ore that focused on the early recording innovations that led to Bessie Smith & Gertrude "Ma" Rainey's along with other blues artists earliest recordings.
Regrettably with previews, press features nor reviews found via my online search. Although I only learned of the production from previews and reviews in local alternative and mainstream press....(Pretty sure the production was at the small theater within the waterfront World Trade Center of PoTown, Ore via indie theater production and regrettably NOT ONE of these that I did find in historic online search of PDX Drama stage production on life of Bessie Smith and his\herstoric recording innovations!
I lost track very quickly, but if what you are saying is that most pop/folk/rock songs are written in the first person and that this first person is a representation of the author's real life, no I don't agree with that at all. Surely, even so-so songwriters are quite capable of inventing fictional characters and situations that have no analogue in the songwriter's life. Those characters can show their feelings, but they need not be the feelings or perspective of the writer. One might begin with an observation of a real-life person, but that's just a malleable form of reporting; it needn't be a depiction of the songwriter's "feelings."
Thank you sincerely, songwriter Scott for your good faith attempt at engaging with my notes on the main drives of expressing oneself through song. One shouldn't overlook the ego drive, even when as I argued in Rock\Pop that seems to form songs from first person and often confessional narrative or ego projection upon characters & their situ that the writer uses as a stand-in for the experience of engaging (for better & worse) with humanity and our mortal-made 'others'.
Keep doing and your ears tuned widely and multi-directionally while writing or otherwise engaging in creativity in good faith.
Wonderful holidays to your family, social circles and the rest of us on this spinning orb in the skies....
Health and balance,
Tio Mitchito
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)
Thanks, Mitch. I wish you and your circle a fabulous holiday season. I have more to say, but let's give everyone else a break, you know, in the spirit of Xmas. ;)
Really enjoyed this! Now I gotta check out the new Lily Allen too. Tonight Candi Jenkins opens at Elkton. Check her out when you can. She used to be pretty well known as Katie Toupin of houndmouth but is starting over it seems.
I can’t remember whether my entry into your music was Diary, or a chance gig at he old 12 Bar in London, probably the latter. It’s an album I still play. Never thought of it as a breakup album per se, but a snapshot of a songwriter’s life when life was challenging to say the least. I haven’t heard the new Lilly Allen yet, but the Jason Isbell/Amanda Shires albums put a lot of pain and disappointment on view. Her’s is more raw, his is prettier, more “well that’s over” in tone.
Go back to my 40s? No thanks. And I can confirm some people stay together for the dogs for a little while. Let us know the open mike details, you never know who might show up!
Will you update us on open mic night, please? This is another terrific piece, Amy.
Thanks Ed! I’ll let you know if I have the nerve to do an open mic, kinda hoping I have a gig that day heh heh.
Yes, we want to know about open mic night! Also, dog update, haha. 🐕
Will let you know!
It's great how you draw a parallel between yourself and Lily Allen with the idea that "You do it for yourself, but go hard enough and it speaks for others". And that listening to her music gave you a perspective on your own music.
Thanks Pascal - some artistic envy can be a good motivator, but also helpful for self-reflection!
I did NOT see the ending coming! Well done, old lady. ;) As an almost completely unknown songwriter, at age 62, I also have to guard against the pile of personal tropes/cliches in my songwriting attempts these days. I wrote a lot in my middle years. A lot of real life things seemed to have ruined the "writing streak." Now, I say to myself, "Nope, done that a million times before," or "Sorry, no more Brian Wilson piano-pounding," "let's not do Ray Davies descending bass lines," etc. Thinking back, though, the productive years had self-imposed rules, too. For instance, to be proper pop songs, each had to have three distinctive musically related sections. Boy, I ditched that in my old man years! Lucky to get two sections (verse/chorus). Sorry this has turned out to be about me. Just reaching for a connection with your thoughts.
Love this, thank you Scott for connecting my words with your process!
Nearly all of rock and rock-related songwriting (more broadly Pop) is first person narrative ego driven. Apologies to Randy Newman and others in rock who work and play around with writing personae. However, it is Theater, Soundtrack music & song where the purpose of each song or piece of music is about advancing a larger narrative.
This recently rebroadcast segment on NPR looking at how Stephen Sondheim works (and plays) seems fortuitous to this ongoing internal meditation of songwriters and also broader and more social ongoing discourse:
https://shorter.libguides.com/c.php?g=1105816&p=8062745
"This episode of NPR’s Fresh Air, originally aired when a revival of Merrily We Roll Along was running at New York City Center, contains songs from that musical, as well as excerpts from multiple interviews with Sondheim about his career, compositional techniques, and musical influences."
"Listen, I Made a Hat"
"This eight-episode fan-produced podcast has some episodes devoted to in-depth coverage of individual musicals and others devoted to other topics, such as set design in musicals and an overview episode for those who don’t know as much as they’d like to about Sondheim."
"Steven Sondheim: The Story So Far"
"Each episode of this thirty-two-episode Masterworks Broadway podcast series discusses one musical or song from the Sondheim canon, with multiple guest stars per episode, including Sondheim himself, Bernadette Peters, Hal Prince, and Chita Rivera, along with many others. For those familiar with prominent Broadway actors, hearing about their experiences with Sondheim can be fascinating."
Such a different perspective than the rock world of frequently awesome flashes of breakthroughs in song-making forms and recording techniques. Something about the narrative functions of songs in the musical theater, perhaps the intimacy or potential for it, seems to have inspired those introverts drawn to playing and listening and brooding and ruminating to jazz.... Compositional Dreamers perhaps better known as recording studio artists and concert theatrical attractions whose works straddled many different radio formats such as Donny Hathaway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donny_Hathaway
Or the New Orleans' vast Batiste musical family
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batiste_family
Especially the stylistically diverse and experimental recordings of
innovators drawing from traditional roots such as educator Alvin Batiste
solo with electronics or organic with the Clarinet Summit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Batiste
Or composer-arrangers and studio producers such as Allen Toussaint and elder New Orleans musical compositional stylistic sages such as Henry Roeland Byrd dba Professor Longhair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Longhair
St. Louis's gift to contemporary jazz and soundtrack work, John Hicks or Jeanne Kittrell dba Prof Jean Kittrell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Kittrell
https://www.theintelligencer.com/news/article/Remembering-the-career-of-local-favorite-Jean-13196843.php
Or improvisers of even classically - formed composer\players like Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Joanne Brackeen, Jaki Byard, Martha Argerich, Rickie Lee Jones, Laura Nyro even and especially the idiosyncratic stylists from cross-over classical-cabaret-theater-composers such as (if anybody is really even remotely similar to) the singular Nina Simone....or session playing arranger composers working somewhere near the skill set of Chicago's studio whiz and 1970's R&B producer-innovator Charles Stepney (production whiz of local ensemble Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton etc) or jazz-based composer-synthesists such as McCoy Tyner or Duke Pearson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-FEcv7hXE
"The Charles Stepney story"
Vee White
2K subscribers
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
“Gimme a pig foot and a bottle of beer…” sang Bessie Smith back in the 30s. I do love Stephen Sondheim but that’s all getting a bit heady Mitch! I think blues and folk storytelling have a lot to do with it too.
Advancing every inter-personal and human encounter in whatever musical theater production Sondheim & his collaborators are writing & putting up on the boards is as pure a folk and storytelling venture as any cabaret, club, rock, pop, folk or gospel spotlight lit bit of floor or upon a well-lit stage. My whole point was trying to clear away hierarchies we impose through our necessarily limited life experiences aided and abetted by imagi-Nation....Bessie Smith moved many including me with her repertoire and I'm glad to have been born after recording technology was invented and put into use!
Also, the stage productions, one especially effective here in Portland, Ore that focused on the early recording innovations that led to Bessie Smith & Gertrude "Ma" Rainey's along with other blues artists earliest recordings.
Regrettably with previews, press features nor reviews found via my online search. Although I only learned of the production from previews and reviews in local alternative and mainstream press....(Pretty sure the production was at the small theater within the waterfront World Trade Center of PoTown, Ore via indie theater production and regrettably NOT ONE of these that I did find in historic online search of PDX Drama stage production on life of Bessie Smith and his\herstoric recording innovations!
https://newplayexchange.org/script/2013304/the-devils-music-the-life-and-blues-of-bessie-smith
https://dctheatrescene.com/2017/08/31/devils-music-life-blues-bessie-smith-review/
https://pc-pdx.com/bands/Bessie-Smith
https://www.myblackhistory.net/Bessie_Smith.htm#google_vignette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_(film)
Good luck to US all finding a revival of such a production....
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
I lost track very quickly, but if what you are saying is that most pop/folk/rock songs are written in the first person and that this first person is a representation of the author's real life, no I don't agree with that at all. Surely, even so-so songwriters are quite capable of inventing fictional characters and situations that have no analogue in the songwriter's life. Those characters can show their feelings, but they need not be the feelings or perspective of the writer. One might begin with an observation of a real-life person, but that's just a malleable form of reporting; it needn't be a depiction of the songwriter's "feelings."
Thank you sincerely, songwriter Scott for your good faith attempt at engaging with my notes on the main drives of expressing oneself through song. One shouldn't overlook the ego drive, even when as I argued in Rock\Pop that seems to form songs from first person and often confessional narrative or ego projection upon characters & their situ that the writer uses as a stand-in for the experience of engaging (for better & worse) with humanity and our mortal-made 'others'.
Keep doing and your ears tuned widely and multi-directionally while writing or otherwise engaging in creativity in good faith.
Wonderful holidays to your family, social circles and the rest of us on this spinning orb in the skies....
Health and balance,
Tio Mitchito
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
Thanks, Mitch. I wish you and your circle a fabulous holiday season. I have more to say, but let's give everyone else a break, you know, in the spirit of Xmas. ;)
Maybe YOU should cover Pussy Palace. Great writing as always.
At least for the podcast version of this piece! Thanks Angel xx
Really enjoyed this! Now I gotta check out the new Lily Allen too. Tonight Candi Jenkins opens at Elkton. Check her out when you can. She used to be pretty well known as Katie Toupin of houndmouth but is starting over it seems.
Thanks Ron, hope the show went well!
If I listen to her album will I understand how "open marriage" and "duplicitous husband" go together?
Yep.
checked it out. I see what you mean.
Rules is rules.
Suggestion - you go to the open mic night to support the barista and then you play “The Things You Leave Behind”.
Nice idea, such a great song
I can’t remember whether my entry into your music was Diary, or a chance gig at he old 12 Bar in London, probably the latter. It’s an album I still play. Never thought of it as a breakup album per se, but a snapshot of a songwriter’s life when life was challenging to say the least. I haven’t heard the new Lilly Allen yet, but the Jason Isbell/Amanda Shires albums put a lot of pain and disappointment on view. Her’s is more raw, his is prettier, more “well that’s over” in tone.
Go back to my 40s? No thanks. And I can confirm some people stay together for the dogs for a little while. Let us know the open mike details, you never know who might show up!
Thanks for all the years Jim, since our 40s!
Wow, way fun. Ha. Love you.