Belmont Songwriters Guild

To quote Jay-Z, these are just my thoughts.
This was the question posed at last week's songwriter's meeting at church. I took a-lot of notes. I never offered up any of my reasons. I don't want to seem like I'm being contrary or whatever. But I am contrary. Maybe I am being passively contrary. I lack tact sometimes. I'm not good at conveying what I mean when it comes to song writing without being mean spirited. I am opinionated when it comes to writing. I like to let my songs do the talking. Maybe it's not something I could talk about to a crowd. But I could write you this note. I hate telephones. I don't like the immediacy, the on the spot shot down. I liked letters. I like e-mail. So here I'll tell you about song writing. This is a hard question to answer in Nashville where everyone is a songwriter. The whole place sort of smacks you in the face about it, all the time. It haunts me. I know every time I drive past Studio B Elvis spit somewhere on that street. Waiting, outside looking up at the moon.

So why do I write songs?
Free beer. In other cities you get free beer when you play a show. We used to get paid in pitchers.
It's a high. When the drum machine is going and I have my palm punching down on the strings and I'm reading over some lyrics I wrote, twisting them and letting them fall, it's a high. When you find that hook that was laying there the way the words got plastered to the page. When the groove clicks. When you imagine it with a record pop at the start and then boom the song rolls. When you imagine playing it live for the first time. That's a high. This is still true.

Songs are my Morse Code. I always hate to tell anyone, anything. So I put it into songs. I used to ask for things in Morse Code as a kid. I kept doing it with songs. I had a crush on a girl. I'd tell her in a song. I was mad at someone for something they did. I'd tell them in a song. Every thing that was stuck in my throat and my chest dying to get off I put into a song. I never put it across clear either. I took bits and pieces and scrambled it all up. I hid it in boxes and cloaks. Songs were the only window. I was always too nervous to be straight forward. Then I started going to church and a whole new way of looking at it all came to me. Life changed. Around 33.

I couldn't help it. When I was in school I wrote songs acting like I was taking notes. When I had jobs I carried around a scrap piece of paper. When I worked retail I wrote on register tape. When I drove I wrote on my steering wheel on receipts. At UTK I'd walk half way to school and get an idea and sit down and write by the train tracks. I wrote on any thing I could get my hands on. I'd call my answering machine with a line. I wrote on the subway in NYC. All this stopped around 33.

I wrote songs to get girls. I wrote songs to get approval. To scream all the things I sat on.
I wrote songs because I grew up lower middle class and I wanted to be as rich as Donald Trump.
I wanted to be on TV in a suit and sunglasses.

Good songs are below the belt. A song has to have body and move.
Songs from just the head or the heart are crap. I don't care if the song came from a hard place and meant a-lot to you, if it's not good it's not good.
Songs are in the air, the guitar is like a radio antennae.
A line is good if it tastes good in your mouth, if it makes your jaw tingle. It tastes like copper from tears.
I remind myself that A.P. Carter had to be a salesman most of his life.

When I have a good song down I feel for one moment that I cheat death. That I nailed down the wind. That I put a name on some nameless emotion. That somehow I wrapped up a bunch of feathers into a pillow and lay my head to sleep. Then the pillow cuts open again and the feathers are everywhere and elusive like all those emotions between fear and love and hate. All those grey ones. Each feather a feeling.
I don't feel like me if I am not writing songs.

Writing is an obsessive compulsive habit. I used to keep a diary. I used to write poems. I still write songs. I used to write short stories. I blog. I Facebook Update. I am obsessed with writing about my experience in the world.
Writing I am tight as a glove, delivery wise I am throw it at the wall and see what sticks. I don't think you can have an exact idea of what you want. There is no point in that. I love to play guitar. I feel absolute joy playing rhythym electric guitar.

I come from mountains and moonshine. Fair or not I think this gives me some sort of edge. I think the mountains are a world of the blues. My eyes are even blue. I can't tell you anymore.

I started writing as a kid to kick everyone in the teeth that thought they were cooler than me. To kick the guy in the teeth that had the girl I wanted. I wrote to snub my nose at people. Revenge was a stone cold motivator for songwriting for years. I wanted to get rich writing songs and then go Howard Hughes. Tell the world to fly up. I wanted to be on the cover of a magazine smirking. Until about 33.
I have around 50 or so good songs. I don't consider myself an artist or a songwriter. I don't make money at it and I am not known as one. I'm a cubicle dwelling business man and I do a good job. This is who I am. This is not entirely true. Since 33 I have come to see I am a songwriter in spite of the world.

Songwriting feels like beating something. I write to be competitive. I want to write songs where everyone goes man the guy that went before him blew and that no one wants to go after me. That was a big motivator for me. I try not to feel this way anymore because it's not right or nice or realistic. But I still get itchy and feisty sometimes. I want to be the best. I realize now that there is no way to be the best. I think there can be standards of what excellence is but it is still ultimately opinion for songs. I'll take prayer. Might help. Remember this is song writing AA.

Since I turned down a record deal at 23 I will never have closure on what I could have done with my talent. I think I feel like Jeremy D on this.
Songwriting is rarely rewarding. It's like tylenol for a headache. It makes this longing go away for a moment. It's like hate. It's like feeding a wild animal. It's something you do to beat something else away. It's like a fight to the death. It's like disappearing and letting something else take your place. This has not changed.

I didn't grow up in church. I can't sing harmony. I don't read the Bible and think of songs. But I have believed since I can remember. Bring it like Rosetta Tharp or Washington Phillips or stay home. I like old Gospel. I like The Dixie Hummingbirds. But I have learned that it's about the experience and not the sound. So I find some joy now even in the pop. I always believed but never knew Jesus until I was about 33. Oddly the age he died. In my twenties I liked God because it was a good way to hate hippies. I didn't get Jesus until later. I guess I was sort of Old Testament Fire and Brimstone. I still have a tough time believing God really wants a relationship with us and cares about us but I feel it's true. Since realizing this I have climbed higher.

I went to a Baptist School. I got in trouble for singing "Centerfold" some J.Geils Band take on The Stones. I got in trouble for singing "I Love Rock n Roll" with a girl on the swings. I got in trouble for going "LALA LA LA" in music class. Looking back I can see where this was heading. I can't sing harmony. I don't know how to read music. I don't know anything about it. I was in trouble. Then I got sent to Public School and I was Public Nerd #1.

Country writing was put up on a pedastool by my family. Dolly. Hank. Cash. Patsy. The Grand Ole Opry was like a pantheon of saints. My Great Uncle sang Ernest Tubb.
Life is like a huge overwhelming noise twisting my heart until I can place it into boxes called songs.
I like choral music when I dream of Civil War Soldiers marching to their death. Otherwise it bores me. I like "Beautiful Dreamer" by The Robert Shaw Chorale.
Let's stop before I give too much away.

All that doesn't really matter now. A-lot of that isn't how I feel now.
Now I write to capture some moment, to distill my life. To work on this passion even though I have no time. I work a job, I'm a family man. I make ends meet. I want to try and make something that goes above what I've done. To connect. To dig deeper. To push away all the mean motivations and try to write not to be a rock star, or get paid but for the love of it. For once. For nothing but the love of it.

I have about 5 songs together for something new. I need to focus on writing more.