Spent the last three days listening to the radio and yeah, I got my wish of listening to mostly new music and/or covers I hadn’t heard before but it was a bittersweet affair 'cuz a lot of it didn't ring my bell ifyouknowwhadImean.
The DJ's playing these tunes didn't share that same opinion, they thought they were spinnin' the good stuff because during breaks in the entertainment they sometimes waxed long upon the artist, about how this or that song had personal meaning for them, or that they knew something about a particular song's history, how it was created, and they wanted to share that.
Old Skool analog, no data plan required.
Eric Nopanen- Unsplash.com
Which led me to the thing I want to write about, which is the song creation process (and the creative process in general).
Songs are mainly written by bands, which is plural, so there is involvement to varying degrees by mates within the band when it comes to accessing the creative magic from which the song springs which they then describe to curious magazine (nowadays podcast) interviewers in this way: "Me an' me blokes crafted a tune over some whiskey and beers that’s about a girl Johnny had a breakup with. It took us an hour to write it on a sotted Sunday afternoon when we were hungover from the LA gig", which gets you to think that that is how all rock songs are created. Easy! Just like that!
Somebody comes up with the lyrics, somebody else comes up with the rhythm, melody, or beat, and then somebody else goes "Hey mates- why don't we cut out that last lil' bit 'n put this in there" upon which he does a slight riff on his guitar and the other band mates go "Oye, mate! That is bloody perfect!" and the next thing you know 'Satisfaction' or whatever is gaining serious airplay and then interviewers swarm ‘round the band and hound them for further insights on their creative process (and extraordinarily un-ordinary lifestyles).
One astute guy I listened to casually talked about his life in the music business and related that he was part of a gypsy community that traveled the world doing gigs as part of this or that band. When he had a break from touring he would touch base at a certain studio where he had an opportunity to record all the songs he'd been working on as a solo project on the side, one of many such solo projects he'd done over the years. He’d collaborate with all kinds of other gypsy musicians that he knew and were in town at the time and I couldn’t help but think “is that the coolest life or what?" as he was relaying it.
He had gotten onto 'The Circuit' and once within it, contacts, connections, leads, resources, equipment, collaborators, and like-minded people seemed to abound. The people within The Circuit got along very well with each other because they all liked what they did for a living and were making good enough money to be able to forgo working at a regular job, or any kind of ‘job’ at all.
Then, as if that wasn’t good enough, they also gained Satisfaction from having an impact upon the world that they could readily measure because they said that they could walk into a mall, a bar, an airport lounge, or whatever and hear one of their songs playing, a song that they had imagined into existence. How is that for having an effect? It's like creating a gift that keeps on giving to the world because, if it's a good song, it could be played one day short of forever.
Writing (wordsmithing, I call it) bares little similarity with songwriting. Not nearly as public, the words that are written in pages are only selectively read. They are not widely broadcast like the lyrics in songs are but then again, if you rethink it, are not all movies written and then broadcast to the public at large? All TV series too? Even the intensely private thoughts of a standup comedian can make it to the airwaves.
So what am I getting at here? Other than in singer/songwriter solo acts, stand-up comedy, and book writing (there may be some others), there exists collaboration. This means that the person that holds the initial vision accepts a loss of control over a project and allows input and change that in the end may or may not match his/her initial vision. This tradeoff is necessary because in collaboration most of the big projects get done. You have to have the visionary, but you also have to have those ones who are good at what they do to take the project to the next level. In doing so, you are taking risk that the project will lose its way, yes, but in that collaborative risk taking there is the huge possibility that something can be created that can surpass anything an individual could ever bring about on their own.
Maybe you and your mates collaborate and put an album together in the studio like four blokes in England did fifty years ago called The White Album or you have a cast of thousands and a budget of millions and end up crafting a masterpiece like Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
Who knows? There’s magic in individuals not knowing everything.