It’s like a prayer, in a way, to make a song. You are comforted by it, and corrected by it, and if it becomes a ritual never again are you the same. I don’t remember how any of them get written. Only that by the end of the process, you’re like a child wanting their …
Category: writing
invisible
For the next two days I’m living in a sunny, spare room over a bookshop, in a one-pump, two-church town by the sea. It’s a kind of self-imposed exile. I have this song to finish, and, well, to begin rediscovering who I used to be … . I don’t know anyone here. I’ll wander around among the streets, be quiet and observe …
bulletproof
When I go on tour, I meet a lot of interesting people. After a show near Woodstock this week, a sweet man calling himself Star Blanket handed me a mysterious bag whose contents, he said, would make me … bulletproof. I opened it and looked inside it, and it was white willow bark, a cage necklace, and a …
that’s beautiful
My friend Ryan stopped by this afternoon. I played him a song I started recording last week. (I’ve got an acoustic guitar, a lead vocal, and a temporary background part on it so far.) “That’s beautiful,” he said. I never know what to say after someone says, that’s beautiful, except to agree with them. For me, beauty is …
love songs
If your heart is broken, a song is a good place to grieve. If you want someone to fall in love with you, a song can be the place to take them in. I believe that all songs – the happy ones, the sad ones, the lullabies, the protest tunes, each social commentary and every funeral dirge – all of them are love songs, …
01:22
When I dress to go out, I usually end up taking off the leather cuffs I have put on … or the vest, or the belt, or the hat. This sort of thing occurred to me when I was making up a song last week. I kept thinking it needed fewer words, fewer notes, fewer instruments, less overdubs. …
world’s oldest musical instrument
I loved museums when I was a boy, and I still do. The great ones in New York City, especially the Natural History Museum, were places of wonder to me. Some shows last week along the southern Atlantic coastline led me to the Smithsonian, where I spent hours wondering at this flute, discovered in a cave in Germany just ten years …
still life
My right arm is all strapped up and bandaged. It’s just bruised. I tripped over a guitar cable and down some stairs. For comedic relief, I’m telling everyone else an entirely different story. Some people I tell I was injured practicing the mysterious art of Japanese Ninjutsu. Parachute-jumping. Rock-climbing. Bull-riding. A good songwriter never lets facts get in the way. I’ve …
living room music
There's a tempo they want. A sound quality they want. There are subjects they won't air. The music industry (like any other successful industry) is about formulas and rules. Follow them, and you will succeed in it as a songwriter and, for better or worse, likely remain a part of it for life. Incidentally, the formula looks like this: This Brightness plus that Tempo plus this …
how to tune a guitar
You go for a drive with the top down and let the guitar sit in the passenger seat. Make the first left, that way your destination is farther and the road to it prettier, the blossoms absurdly violet. Lose your location. Fiddle with the radio dial. Brush past the popular music stations to the one of choice. Pause there just to adore …
