Songwriting discipline, the Muse, and Bob.

The Muse finally dropped by a couple of nights ago and uncorked a geyser of lyrical joy… by no means the only song I’ve written recently, but certainly the most authentic – one that has just clicked and I know will be with me for a long time.

The main lyric, which came out of nowhere, with no meaningful intention attached, is: “You can get away with murder if you tidy up your house”. Which, when I wrote it, I clearly wasn’t doing. I was sitting down frantically scribbling down lyrics. Of course, I don’t really believe that you can get away with murder just by tidying your house, that would be silly. We’d just all go around killing people we didn’t approve of, and coming home and tidying up, and no-one would be any the wiser.

However, I have discovered tonight that what you can do whilst tidying the house is find the mental space to learn up the long and complex lyrics to a new song. So cleaning the kitchen wasn’t at all boring tonight. I think I may have forged some new neural pathways, which isn’t usually the case when stacking the dishwasher.

And it is a very wordy song. Although it doesn’t sound anything like a Bob Dylan song, it was quite tangibly influenced by Bob. I’ve just finished re-reading his ‘Chronicles’, which, if you permit it, can get right between your brain cells and speak volumes of sense to the inner songwriter. Reading ‘Chronicles’ tickled the part of my brain which likes to use the richness and vastness of the words of our language to dance around ideas that may not have literal words to describe them. And to have a lot of fun in doing so.

Also, to patiently persist with a song, to allow it to blossom fully. Not to jump up and run off once you’ve got a couple of verses down, but to wait around and see what other combinations might present themselves. So even though the song sounds frantic and hyperactive (no surprises there…) it is a patient song, and it took me a good hour to reveal the 10+ verses that squeeze into its 3-and-a-bit minutes.

The other patient songwriter I really admire (but hardly ever listen to) is Robert Smith. His lyrical style isn’t always my thing, but the arrangements are just perfect. He can pull such emotion out of an understated guitar line that 99% of guitarist-songwriters would just bypass completely, going either for something flashier or just a bunch of dull strumming.

Anyway, here are a couple more lines from my lovely, new, dumb song.

I’m not averse to experimentation
Just give me the test tube, I’ll chuck it in the blender
Ain’t got time for no argumentation
Does anybody know about carburettors?

…..

I’m so mean and so caffeine
Baby you’re so pure and full of chlorine
You knew everything when you were nineteen
Better tell the truth or your hair’ll turn green

…..

Keep in perspective, don’t be so reflective
Trade in your dreams for a key objective
Don’t tell no-one you’ve got red knickers on
I’m about as square as a dodecahedron

So anyway… carburettors have been an active subject in our house lately, leading Pip to advise me that I shouldn’t have one on my motorbike. I should have a motorbikeburettor. And I’m sure that’s why the damn thing refuses to start!

Oh, all right then!

This is where I follow through on the meme bit, or maybe the tag bit. I’m still not sure. But here’s a bunch of questions, and here also are my answers.

What I was doing 10 years ago:

Swiftly plunging towards an early mid-life crisis! In typical all-or-nothing fashion (of the time, I’m more controlled now), I quit my job, disbanded my band and left a relationship (involving hurriedly moving into an ill-advised share house) all within a few weeks.

It was then that I discovered cycling, which was great because it got me off cigarettes. But I also had a lot of useless revelations, and spent too long wandering up and down the Kangaroo Point cliffs muttering to myself, and sometimes to the cars.

I got a pc, but quickly got rid of it because I didn’t like having the internet in my bedroom (I really was a bit messy). So I was kind of sworn off technology for a while. The last email I received was “Fine, be a luddite then. See if I care!” Funny that I ended up doing coding and database admin.

I wrote some good songs, but they were generally pretty angsty. I think I wrote my worst-ever song in 1998 too. Thankfully, I think only one other person has ever heard it… though unless he’s taped over it, it’s probably still on a cassette somewhere. It was called “Make the Effort”

On my to-do list today:

Before bed, I am planning to make an experimental batch of spelt-and-raisin sourdough cookies. I’ve no idea how to make cookies, I guess I’ll just wing it. I’ve just ‘fed’ my spelt sourdough culture, and rather than discard the poured-off part, I thought I’d try and do something useful (and yummy) with it.

I also hope to get some reading done. I’m reading ‘Swindled’ by Bee Wilson, a fascinating and very thorough work on the history of dodgy food. Unfortunately, it being not what you’d call a quick read, I’ve been spirited away by Bill Bryson’s ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ – his childhood memoir, which is a quick and easy, and immediately gratifying read. So I’ll probably stick with that til I’ve finished (which won’t be tonight), then go back to ‘Swindled’.

Oh yes, and I’ll probably have a swig or 3 from the open chianti bottle which would otherwise continue sitting uselessly in the fridge.

Snacks I enjoy:

Stilton. Brie de Meaux. Brie de Melun. Epoisses. Caerphilly. Yarg. Camembert de Normandie. Haloumi. Feta. Dolcelatte. Spelt and raisin sourdough cookies (hopefully). Did I mention cheese?

Things I would do if I was a Billionaire:

Buy Welsh hilltop farms. Block the drains. Reinstate moorland. Buy Aussie outback farms. Propagate appropriately.

Five places I have lived:

Llanidloes, Canberra, Toowoomba, Launceston, Brisbane. In ascending order of temperature.

Five jobs I have had:

I’ll try and do the more interesting ones.

1. Lighting operator for a strip show in Goondiwindi. It was a MALE strip show! The challenge was to get the right volume of smoke out of the smoke machine, whilst not actually looking directly at what you were supposed to be only partially obscuring.

The venue was the Queensland Hotel, affectionately known to the locals as the Snake Pit. After a night’s disco (non-strip) entertainment in the front bar, the floor was a sea of broken glass. Not just 10oz ‘pot’ glasses, but beer jugs, and those big, thick pub ashtrays. Entertainment was sparse in Goondiwindi.

2. Mechy / rigger type for a variety of venues, but mostly for an ambitious satellite-urban entertainment centre. It was fun going up the scissor lift, but I remember on my 30th birthday being up the top and thinking “Sigh! My life is going nowhere!” It’s nice to be 35 and not be thinking that any more.

3.
“Medical Payments, Owen speaking”
“Hello Simon, could I get a payment unauthorised?”
The frequency of this little aural mishap was the most notable thing about job #3. Nuff said.

4.
Remotely looking after electrical submetering systems for the US and UK’s biggest retailers. The aim being energy savings. If less coal is burned as a result of my work, I’m happy enough with that. If the side effect is that the big retailers increase their profits… well, so be it I guess. You can’t have it both ways.

5.
“Alright, good evening and welcome to Krazy Dayz Karaoke, I’m your host for tonight and I’m going to do a couple of tunes to get you in the swing… woo-hoo! Listen, boy, I don’t wanna see you let a good thing slip away…”

And finally…five people who write interesting blogs that I’d like to tag (in no order of preference):

plumsource – you are the only other blogger I know of. I should get out more. Or stay in more!

My mate JT in Brisbane wrote a great blog for some time, but his blogging shrivelled up coincidentally when facebook took off. Now he writes a status update every few days, usually paraphrasing or quoting whatever is his lyric of the moment.

Now, do I add tags to my tag post? I think I’ll have to tag it ‘tags’.

Things I could have been usefully doing…

… instead of staying up til 1am playing ‘who has the biggest brain’ on facebook:

- racking off kiwifruit wine
- sweeping kitchen
- finishing Bill Bryson book
- finishing Graeme Greene book
- finding panniers, bike lock, bike light etc to prepare for cycling to work in morning
- finishing off outstanding website work
- grabbing a guitar and sorting out half-written songs
- stretching
- sleeping

However, on the plus side:

- I’d had a productive day already
- I now apparently possess a 2801cc Squidlian brain
- I’m getting much better at dividing by 3

Pity in a way it’s not 2799cc, as that would make 3 neat compartments of 933cc each (but maybe I needed those extra 2cc to figure that out… um… yeah)