Quote:
Originally Posted by mishmannah
Egervari & Chicago Sandy,
Thank you for taking the time to write your findings according to your expertise. They are very informative; and I concur with Egervari's great suggestion with regards to sorting out issues (his term, "getting therapy").
I don't know if this is what he means, but I personally can't be creative when there is a lot of emotional turmoil in my life. I used to think that it was very unusual at University, when everyone else claimed that they were more creative when they were depressed/going through angst, but for me, the creative well dries up when everyday stresses block it.
This is a great thread.
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It depends on your own talents and style. Some folks whose best lyrics keep turning out to be soul-baring and gut-wrenching (or edgily humorous), who need both angst in their lives and the ability to summon it, run into a creative roadblock when their depression or anxiety is treated. Others who prefer to write sunnier stuff, story songs where they go entirely outside themselves and need privacy and time to concentrate are going to have dry spells when life gets in the way. Some songwriters are so immensely talented that they can write all of the above and not only block out all distractions but find ways to make them work to their advantage.
The Tin Pan Alley and Brlll Building staff writers who legendarily cranked out product day in and day out could often go days without writing something cuttable and weeks without something salable. People simply bought more songs back then--sheet music and later, vinyl singles. Albums were not the primary music delivery device, 45s were, and because of their price and the relative immediacy of getting a song recorded, pressed, and promo'ed to radio there was tremendous and rapid turnover. Often, albums were not released until an artist had several hit singles. These writers had practically no competition from singer-songwriters, amateur or pro--with few exceptions (Diamond, Sedaka, Vee, Dion, and later King) few singers wrote and few writers sang their own material. Nowadays, except for single-song downloads, the most prevalent form of music purchase is still the full album (albeit on CD), with a hit or two and the rest filler that often never gets airplay. And there are more talented singer-songwriters out there now flying under the radar because starting in the late 60s and early 70s there began to be a market for the "self-contained" package. As a result, people outside the industry began to realize that their writing could gain commercial viability or at least professional and critical approval.
Songz, you may be the exception, but brilliant newbies don't come out of nowhere, follow the rules and get album cuts the way you get light when you flip a wall switch--you know the Nashville drill of slowly building relationships to the point where you either become a staff writer, co-writer with someone with greater clout, or the go-to guy when a producer or A&R guy who knows you and your work either requests your material or is willing to listen to your submissions. Ironically, the song that gets one's foot in the door is often never cut (even though it may turn out to be better than later songs by the writer that do get cut)--it's what induces those who can move your career along to ask you to come up with more great songs just to prove you can.
And just because a song is a hit doesn't mean it's better than one that doesn't make the charts or even clear the hurdle to getting cut--it's simply because it fits the template that publishers, producers and A&R people in a particular genre demand--the song is the key, the template is the keyhole and the powers-that-be are the lock. If it doesn't fit the specs, it'll never find its way to the appropriate artist. Murphy's rules may be the hallmark of successful songs, but the flip side of that may be that the rules themselves often serve as the gatekeepers. To some degree, it's sui generis. C'est la vie.
One of the greatest and most highly acclaimed songwriters who ever lived (and who started as strictly a performer, albeit a dynamic and brilliant entertainer), Steve Goodman, had only a couple of top 40 hits ("City of New Orleans"--but not till Arlo Guthrie cut it; "You Never Even Call Me By My Name," cut by David Allen Coe; and "Banana Republics," which was a modest AAA hit when recorded by Jimmy Buffet). By today's commercial standards, he had relatively few cuts by well-known artists (as opposed to those cut by highly regarded but not necessarily commercially successfu contemporaries). Yet many more of his songs are timeless and ironically, the best performances of the hit ones were his own. He never cut an album that sold as many as 50,000 copies--in fact the better they (and he) got, the less and less he sold. He did not sit down and write a song a day the way Paxton, Warren, the Brill Bldg. or Music Row staff writers can--often, his best songs either morphed over time or came to him as occasional bolts from the blue--he had relatively frequent dry spells, though he was one of the quickest and brightest lyrical imrovisers who ever lived. He made a very good living later in his career, but not commensurate with his immense talent. There is not a singer-songwriter, critic or songwriting authority today who can honestly and credibly say his writing was less than brilliant and not an influence upon the writing of the generation that came after.