February 2012:

So I finished work on a project this week which I have essayed twice before in past years, which is: I write "personalized" songs for some of the people who subscribe to, and contribute a certain amount to, WFMT, and who ask to have this done, I'm told, of their own free will.

WFMT, of course, is Chicago's world renowned classical and folk music station, and Rich Warren of WFMT's "Midnight Special" allows and encourages me to do this. I get to contribute some specific and specialized labor to the station which gives so much to the world (and which has certainly played my songs a bunch on their folk segments).

I usually construct these things guided by written, sometimes beautifully written, input from the folks who are getting the songs composed for them, although at other times I'll have no real information to use except a name and address. It's always a challenge and a great learning experience. So I thought you might find some things I have discovered, during this endeavor, to be thought-provoking. Or by now you've dialed up My Drunk Kitchen.

When I encounter the info upon which I'm to construct a song, if the subscriber has been reasonably thorough in her/his composition my first response is usually: this person is asking too much of me, I can't get it all in there, they're nuts to think I can cope with this. Because I'm so aware that people are writing in about parts of their lives that are very personal and precious to them, I mean, why else would you want to have this stuff put in a song? And I don't want to disappoint them, and at this beginning stage, I'm so sure I will.

Well, this time I got the picture and I trust I won't be fooled again by this early response, my body saying Oh Please Don't Ask Me To Do This Today, Let's Go Get Some Ice Cream. For one thing, that's my first response to everything. Second stage, when I'm actually working on the songs, I'm like: this is so fun, I can do a hundred of these. And you know, both of these reactions, I think I can't and I think it'll be easy, aren't accurate. What turns out to be the case is, I can, but I can't toss it off. It's a lot of work to get it to the point where it's acceptable. This is THE life lesson, isn't it? If Mr. Krishnamurti or the Pope or Billy Graham or anyone who calls himself a teacher had gotten this notion through to me when I was, say, sixteen, I think I'd still be following them around for their perspicacity, and you get it free with this paragraph.

More practically, I read about the following songwriting method somewhere, possibly in Steve Gillette's fine book about songwriting. People have been doing this for centuries, you construct a lyric by writing a person's name with the letters vertically arranged and do a line that starts with every letter. Have I described this clearly? (My plane geometry teacher at Passaic Valley, the unforgettable Mr. Werner, bless him, used to say that there's no way to describe a spiral verbally, you always wind up having to whirl your finger around.) When I construct a song with the letters of a person's name as a lyric guide, something happens to my ordinarily earnest making-up-lyric function. It now can only use a certain letter, and it says oh wow, let's find something cool, within these restrictions. The restrictions take away the responsibility (yeah!). It becomes a puzzle, a game. I used this method a bunch this year and I think I got some interesting stuff.

But here's the work part: in order to have a clue as to what lines are reasonable to accept you kind of have to dive right into the (presumed) emotions of the person you're writing for, and that's so hard on your emotions, as I heard some lady say on television today: my hormones are in flux. It's like being an actor, like the Actor's Complaint. "I got so into it that my body forgot I was me". One reason why it wasn't easy to be Phil Ochs, you betcha. That damn empathy, I've been right all along to avoid it.

Oh I read something funny: Peter Sellers said if he got to live his life over he'd do everything the same, but he wouldn't have gone to see The Magus.

Happy New Year to all.