“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it–wholeheartedly–and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” -Arthur Quiller-Couch

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” -William Faulkner

The above quotes, or some varying versions of this, were always discussed as a piece of writing advice in college. It makes sense–just because you love something you wrote, doesn’t mean it works. That being said, I’ve found a couple of blog posts (here and here) that dispute this piece of advice, taking it entirely literally. Of course, this is subject to interpretation, and I do not know either figure well enough to glean their true meaning. But to me–and I do get to cheat, as a songwriter rather than a literary writer–this is what it means.

It is not: If you love it, get rid of it. It is: If you love it, you shouldn’t necessarily indulge it. And this is something I certainly agree with, both in writing and relationships. I’ve written a lot of shitty songs (as we discussed in my last post) but I wrote them because I feel them, and I needed to write them, and I certainly have a fair amount of fondness for them, even acknowledging they’re not my best work. Similarly, I’ve stopped seeing people because, even though their company may be enjoyable and my desire to be near them desperate, it’s just not good for me.

There’s no need to force something that’s not going to work, I guess is my bottom line. Attachments and feelings aside, you can’t turn an indulgent song into a pop hit. And you can’t turn a fundamentally flawed relationship into a real one. The trick is to see which one is which.

Back to writer’s block. There were 2 main things that kept me quiet in college: the city and my college relationship. I am not really a city person, and I found New York incredibly stifling. It didn’t help that I lived with a lot of other people and lived entirely in dorms. I become fairly reclusive when writing, and the feeling that I was never alone was pervasive through my college years, and has subsequently made my transition into self-reliance a little difficult (I have a tendency to follow people home).

The other main thing was the fact that I was in a steady relationship for most of my college career. Being in a healthy, communicative relationship doesn’t quite jive with my method of writing, which namely draws on my stifled internal narratives. I’ve said it before, I write what I feel I can’t say out loud. “My songs are letters to people who I don’t know their addresses.” I haven’t really been in a healthy relationship since this one ended, and needless to say, it’s been an extremely prolific period of my life. I worry about the next time I find myself happy with another person, which has (I hate to say) become a more pressing goal for my future.

The point is, this is the only kind of song I could really write in this time period–something silly and cute, meaningful to me, but slightly lacking in depth. Don’t be too grossed out; it is Valentine’s Day after all.

Initially, I thought music mondays would be half videos, half recorded music. Obviously the recorded stuff takes a bit longer, what with editing and production and a general attention to detail that live videos don’t require. But lookee here, I’m about 2 months in and still have yet to put up something fully produced (aside from the film score I suppose).

Not that I haven’t been busy. Oh no no, not that at all. Of course, the commute robs me of a lot of my music time. But there was the film score, which was fun! But time consuming. There’s also the up and coming a cappella group, Sweet Caroline, that a couple of the girls from Cape Harmony and a couple of other friends are starting up. We meet every Wednesday plus I have to do arrangements once ever 2 weeks or so. And although I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like to, I spent most of my time on the train mulling over lyric ideas and planning things out. I do have to say though, it is music mondays that keep me practicing. The fact that I haven’t missed one yet really lights a fire under my ass to get something done every week. So even though I’m resorting to posting a song that’s a year old–that I wouldn’t say is necessarily one of my best, although I do have a soft spot for it–I am a little proud of myself for following through. It’s like I’m growing up or something.

Storytime: I got business cards. And I’ve just been keeping them in my pocket, and I was thinking about how it would be nice to have something to carry them around in, so they’re not all over the place. And then it hit me–that was Columbia’s graduation present to our class. Seriously. An engraved business card holder. And at the time, I thought it was absolutely the most pretentious and ridiculous object I’d ever owned. I still do in fact. And that’s why I’m still carrying my business cards around in the pocket of my 3 year old jacket, and probably will forever).

in lieu of sad pop song music monday, here is the final piece of the score i finished yesterday. obviously it is not complete out of context like this… but consider it a teaser! i will post the movie, called Skinned, whenever I get my tired little hands on it.

skinned section 5

I worked at this restaurant the summer of 2010 on Cape Cod that sold a lot of lobsters. We had a lobster tank right when you walked in the door that drew lots of tourists in. We sold 1.5 and 3 pound lobster dinners, but one day when I walked into work there was a NINETEEN pounder. So huge that they had to duct tape his claws shut since they didn’t have rubber bands that big. We called him Duct Tape Charlie. Do you know how old a 19 pound lobster is? About 90. Homeboy saw submarine warfare for chrissake.

Anyway, the owner decided we weren’t going to sell him, that we’d set him back free in the ocean, but we’d keep him for the tourists for a couple weeks. Well, it was too late for Charlie. He died in the tank, of course.

I found this out while I was visiting my brother on Nantucket. I got a phone call from a co-worker after a couple drinks, and I just totally lost it. I do frequently get beer tears, but this was a bad one. My very accommodating brother tried to talk me down, saying that this anxiety was coming from the fact that I had just graduated from college, and I was about to move home after the best summer of my life and I had no real life trajectory–all of which was true. Of course I retaliated with, “Don’t say it’s not about the lobster. It IS about the lobster!!!!”

Anyway. Part hilarious, part horrible. Sounds pretty regular. Just figured I’d share. Charlie makes an appearance in this song, since he had a surprisingly large effect on my life for a lobster.

But the meat of the song is the “Get a boyfriend, get a job, find a place to live; my reputation’s as solid as a sieve.” The concept of using “sieve” as an insult is actually something I learned from my dad back when I use to play indoor soccer–he jokingly would threaten to yell that at the opposing team’s goalies. What can I say? It stuck.

It may not need to be said, but my songs primarily deal with my, ahem, romantic life. It’s certainly the easiest thing to write about, not because I’m particularly active in the dating world, but because I generally feel like my songs are all the things I wish I could say, but not don’t feel like I CAN. Even more than that, I don’t usually delve into political stuff #1 because I’m not informed enough and #2 I don’t want to sound like an asshole. But the things I’ve been concerned with in my own life lately have dovetailed pretty nicely with the issues the Occupy movement is pre-occupied with as well (har har). Not that this song is political, per se, but I think it shares a certain idea–that the greatest measure of success is how much money one’s made–that has been a point of public contention lately. And as far as I can tell, Occupy hasn’t really seen any music yet, has it? Aside from, hilariously, Miley Cyrus? Guess I’ll have to dig around on the interwebs a bit more…

Ironically, my new office job starts tomorrow.

I got home and was all warmed up, plus I’d been kicking around the lyrical idea of having to “put down” a relationship for a couple days, hence impromptu late night writing session. It was sort of a weird one, in that I had already thought of most of the lyrical material, not really knowing what the hook would be, and then the “don’t you know what being let go feels like?” just came out of my mouth. Sometimes I just don’t know where this stuff comes from.

I’m thinking the next song I tape should be a cover, since you guys loved that Toxic shit. Any ideas? I’d like to do another random one, maybe rap? Ha.

I think what makes this song work, or at least what makes it catchy, is how stupid/desperate the rhyming pattern is. In general, I don’t make perfect rhymes a priority in my writing–I prefer to give the ends of lines a certain ring to them, but meaning definitely takes precedence. “Fix you” absolutely breaks away from that guideline and plays into what I normally try to avoid, writing the lyrics around the corny rhymes. I came up with the hook first when writing this (“I don’t want to fix you, I’m not one to remove your balls”–I’d been throwing around that idea since my dog got, you know, fixed) and then the rest of the song is just a pretty silly sing-songy follow up to it. But I think that’s what makes it memorable. Breaking your own rules can definitely be a good writing exercise, as long as it’s deliberate.