"Performing is the easiest part of what I do, and songwriting is the hardest"

- Neil Diamond -

Anyone can sit down and write what's in their heads, there's no real challenge there for the creatively-minded. To express yourself in a free-formed manner simply requires that you have a pen, paper, and your thoughts; whatever you want it to be, it is. A significantly more taxing route for those of the more, masochistically-inclined would have to be to express your emotions through song.

Songwriting as always been a performed medium, from the traveling minstrel of medieval time to Neil Young or Johnny Cash of more modern music and that's where I've run into my share of difficulty. Songwriting's cousin in verse, poetry is meant to be savored, repeated, turned back to and scanned as often as is necessary. It is not usually performed - most poetry is read to ones-self, designed to carry the flow and tune internally, whereas lyrical verse is forced to conform heavily to some requirements exclusive to its format.

Because it is an art meant to be performed, a songwriter has, on-average, three to four minutes to get across their message to the listener and make it speak to them. He does not have the luxury of his work being written down on paper and enjoyed at the consumer's pace. Out of those three or four minutes, a third of that time is taken up by the chorus, leaving you with more like two to three minutes of actual time. From there, you have to worry about a well-written bridge to prepare the listener for the climax of your song, so while you can express your message during the chorus and bridge, the real meat of what you want to say is going to be in the small chunks of verse you have left in the song.

Many songwriters feel the urge to first pick up a pen because of uneasiness. That's often how it works in life; our most creative moments are often sparked by our biggest feelings of regret or loss. As Adam Duritz, lead singer of the Counting Crows once said, "...Songs are not about 'I feel sad.' They're about, 'Let me tell you the things that are on the walls and in the room I'm sitting in,' and between the lines of that is the fact that I'm sad. He touches on a good point that expression of one’s feelings is where the power of songwriting comes in when compared to the spoken word.

When Bob Dylan penned the lyrics to "If You See Her, Say Hello" in 1975, he didn't have to come out and tell the listener that he was suffering from his recent divorce from his wife Sara. When he sang "She might think that I've forgotten her, don't tell her it isn't so", you could hear the pain in his voice over knowing that he was in the wrong for their split and that is the gift of a songwriter. Dylan never once came out and said "this song is for Sara", he left a sense of ambiguity that allowed the listener to form their own connection to the song and how it applies to them.

As Duritz said, the biggest difference between songwriting and a face-to-face expression is the deeper meaning beneath what you're saying and that is the advantage that the format provides. Songwriting definitely favors the more introspective side of our imagination over a direct form of communication like verbal communication. I've found that there is often no magic in the spoken word. Where it matters is the magic of making music, you have that unbelievable effect, you are really almost, pardon the corny saying, doing open heart surgery on people with a guitar. Where a song goes in someone's heart is a completely different destination than a quote from a magazine or a quote from a speaker goes. That's definitely where things become complicated for someone trying to compose, though.

So then it becomes the question of how it is that a songwriter can balance the line between wanting to express emotions in song and knowing that it's in your best interests to avoid the specifics if what you are writing is meant for mass-consumption. After-all, a well-written song, like Duritz said, should show why people feel how they feel, not how you specifically got to the point where you felt these feelings.

In my life, I've tried my hand at many different kinds of writing. I've written for newspapers, websites, and magazines. I've written short stories, novels, I've even tried my hand at a (very terrible, albeit) screenplay. The point is, I've tried to experience, in some small way, every form of creative expression you can accomplish with a pen and paper, but nothing has frustrated me in the way that songwriting has.

Really, what I've found is that every song you write is a snapshot of a particular time in your life. Looking back on a library of songs by an artist can reveal where that person's mind was during the composing of each song. There are very few things created in a vacuum, very few songs that just pop into someone's head with little emotional connection to what they're experiencing at that time. The problem then, with such an emotionally driven art form, is that it can almost become an issue of trying to focus what's running through your mind into something that is consumable for an audience.

From a personal standpoint, I've never had issue writing about the failures and successes in my life through something like free-form journal writing where there is no mind paid to structure or form, but quality songwriting requires a willingness to avoid cliche, which is so easy to do when writing a song about my biggest thorn, relationships.

How do you write a song about a subject that has been written about for thousands upon thousands of years and still make it creatively different? That's the million dollar question that has caused a few restless nights across generational lines. What, I think, separates the great writers from the average to bad ones is an ability to walk that line and deliver something truly meaningful and unique that can touch a listener.

For instance, one of the greatest love songs in rock history, "Layla", was written by Eric Clapton in honor of George Harrison's then-wife Patti Boyd. While the relationship, a "behind his back" affair between Clapton and Boyd was the reason it was written, it still stands as one of the greatest examples of unrequited love in lyrical form to date, never mind the fact that has one of the best riffs in rock history and a beautiful guitar coda which, in-itself, is incredibly memorable. When Clapton achingly says "I tried to give you consolation...Like a fool, I fell in love with you, turned my whole world upside down", you can tell that he penned those lyrics from the heart.

In contrast, I could go with "Achy Breaky Heart", or "From a Distance", but those are just way too easy. No, for an example of songwriting gone wrong, I present to you the lyrical abortion that is "Your Body is a Wonderland" by John Mayer. This should be prefaced by saying that I personally think Mayer is a very talented young musician who is a very targeted guitarist, but the song is an example of what happens when you violate every law of songwriting in-order to appeal to the masses. While you can't argue with its success, scoring Mayer a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, the lyrics are filled with borderline creepy and cheap lines such as "One pair of candy lips and your bubblegum tongue" to "you want love? We'll make it, swimming a deep sea of blankets", it's disappointing that Mayer wrote a song laser-targeted to the panties of the young women of America and less towards displaying his considerable talent.

What I believe it all comes back to is the creative gift of expressive writing. While I sit and end up penning a cliche and trite song about regret, when my mind is filled with these grand notions of what I am going through in the pit of my gut, I only have to click on an .mp3 to hear someone far more gifted than myself express those feelings in an emotionally moving way I have proved completely unable of doing.

I listen to Ryan Adams painfully admit that "If it's gotta be you, treat her nice. Hold her hand and tell her twice that she doesn't have to worry, and it will be alright" and I admire his ability to express the regret of seeing your love with someone else so poetically. When Kristopher Roe of The Ataris sings of heartbreak and how; "You told me that you loved me, I started tearing down those walls. I really started to trust you but you set me up to take the fall", you become placed in his relatable world of working towards getting someone to love you, only to have it all come crashing down. You're able to experience this with Roe because he made you feel the story rather than just tell it to you.

So yes, when Neil Diamond said that performing was the easiest part of his job, he was probably on to something. Performance is all about the moment and expressing the feelings that got to you the point where you wrote this song. Performing a song about regret and longing and loss has not proven to be anywhere as difficult as taking those feelings and filtering them into a coherent piece of music.

'Till next time,
Colin

We took the bus to the anarchist book fair
I left the hybrid at home
I scored an extremely rare signed copy of the communist manifesto
We protested the G8, got maced by female police
In hot black uniforms and boots
I got one's e-mail address

- NOFX -

Where do English professors come from? I mean, seriously, are they created in some sort of sick and twisted laboratory of dull? You've all no doubt had a class with an English professor who was just completely obsessed with the subject and, more to the point, his own voice, even to the point where they don't bother asking questions of the students because they don't particurally care what it is that you think. You know the type, the ramblings of a drunken French poet from the 1400s strikes such a chord with the professor for some unknown reason that he feels the need to become lost in thought for 50 to 75 minutes 3 days a week while you think about how hot that Assistant D.A. on Law and Order is. God...*Sigh*.

Yeah, okay, I can understand getting lost in yourself and going off on tirades about something. We've all done it. Me? How "Diet" Coffee Cakes from Hostess may be low in fat, but are still loaded with sugar. Still, though, Francis Ponge? I'm not following what kind of brain you need that reading a 50-page poem about a fucking bar of soap by some Frenchie McFrog-Frog strikes such a chord with you that you find yourself saying: "I must devote the remainder of my terribly dull life to this." There's so much more out there than stuffy old European poetry, guys. Porn. There's porn. There's porn and $.99 KFC chicken sandwhiches, off the top of my head. Also, there's Pro Wrestling and Mel Brooks movies, to, you know...Continue listing things.

Here's what I'm trying to get to, though. Professors who are obsessed with one subject all fall into this same category of educator:

They think you care about their life's devotion.

You've recieved a paper back with the comment: "I like where you're going, but I would love to see you expand on that thought", right? No, dude. I put what I put on that paper for a reason...I knew you'd like it enough to give me a B on it and I don't really feel like shooting for more. The reason I didn't expand on that thought is because I either: A) Don't care to, or B) Think you're completely insane. Sure, I could have talked a greater length about my feelings on your theory that the snail in the poem symbolizes the struggle for lactose intolerant people to enjoy fresh Wisconsin Cheddar, but I think you're a nut-job. I can crap out whatever you tell me to crap out. How do you people not get that the majority of students don't care about you or your whacked out ideas?

Maybe they do, though. Maybe professors do know that we don't care, and they just go with it because they love the sound of their own voice too much to quit or try harder to make us care. The more I live my life, the more I think I'm destined to become a college professor. I almost feel an obligation to the youth of America to give them a class worth going to. Douglas Adams for everyone. Motley Crue's "The Dirt" for all. 300 year-old Frenchmen are of little consequence to the modern teen, so why try to force it down their throats? Give them something they can enjoy. Isn't that what literature is about? Give them sex, give them drugs, give them rock and roll. Let them figure out what's worth believing in on their own...That's what life's about, people.

Keep your Derrida. Give me Hunter S. Thompson. Karl Marx can take a backseat...I'd rather listen to Steve Perry sing to me about how a Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world took the midnight train goin' anywhere. I'd rather read something that inspires my imagionation than something that makes me watch the clock like an eagle, and I'm willing to bet that I'm not alone.

That brings me to my thought on what college is supposed to be. There are too many damn kids here who have no clue how the world really works, but I guess that's what college has always represented. They're the morons who buy into all this existential crap. Kids here now are the same as the morons who got themselves shot on May 4th so many years ago because they were fucking annoying hippies with no clue that their whacked out ideas don't work in reality. Want to know what the difference between a Communist and a Hippie is? Communists have guns.

Call me stupid if you want. Call my unwilling to "expand" my thought process if it gets your rocks off. That's cool. Plenty of kids dig that junk, and that's your deal if it's what you're down with. I'm not going to lead some campaign to rid the world of floaty hippies (although if someone were to start such a cause, they'd have my respect.) Just don't expect me to be at your study sessions, because that ain't my idea of the value of college.

As I sit in my chair and watch life go by,
Colin

Don't wanna fall in love.
Don't need security,
I ain't no dog without a bone.
Don't have no time for love,
So stay the fuck away from me.
Because I don't believe in you,
And I wanna sit here all my life alone.

- Green Day -

(Note: I don't know where I'm going with this. This is just the ramblings of my English Studies notebook and it's "F" material if I've ever seen it. These are just some things I've been wanting to get off my chest for a long time and I don't know if any of it makes sense of any of it has any insight, but take it for what you will. Valentine's Day makes me an angry human being each year. I'll eventually have something better for you guys, I promise.)

Love.

Love, or I suppose the lack thereof. The driving motivation for those without it is a fear of living without it. We search for it, we pine for it, we struggle for it, we need it. We cry at night to our Moms and Friends on the phone when we are living without it because the search for it has become such a major part of our daily grind.

We want it.

We have to have it.

What is its power? Why does it have such a grip on our every thought? We bounce from person to person, from awkward first-date to awkward first-date trying to find that person we "click" with on any level. Why is that? Why don't we cry ourselves to sleep over the fact that Paulie Shore hasn't put out a comedy in years? (On a side note, I saw Son-In-Law on TBS a few nights ago and that movie is still magic. Track it down.)

"I just want someone to cuddle with."

I think there are many reasons why people search so desperately for love, but would it be wrong to say that, at the most basic level, we are just searching for acceptance? Maybe some people are just equipped to handle being alone better than others. Maybe those were the kids who were perfectly fine being grounded by their parents because they had no problem amusing themselves. They didn't need the constant company of another just to function. Still, others look to a "relationship" as a means to an end. As a way to justify their very existance through the eyes of a stranger. A way to make them visible in some small way in a world that is so large and unwieldly.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

So, the question here is this. What side is correct? Is there even a "right" way of looking at the search for love? What I might be getting at is the question of if love at this age is overrated. For that matter, what is love at this age? Can that even be honestly achieved between two people with so much of their lives left to live? Are we meant to be tied down at such a young age to what we consider a "committed" relationship? Princeton defines a "relationship" as: "A state of connectedness between people, especially of the emotional variety." Can you of you really look at yourselves and say with a straight face that you've ever been truly emotionally connected to your partner?

"All you need to do is focus on the little things you love about her. Like...the way she puts out a cigarette...or how when she finishes a beer, she looks inside the can just to check if there's any left."

Maybe I've always looked at love through very jaded eyes, but I've often thought that love was kind of wasted on the young. If you're 21 years old, how can you honestly sit there and tell me that your idea of a relationship goes far beyond making out in your dormroom and arguing over having to go to the mall of a Tuesday afternoon? I have a friend who's girlfriend and him split time between beds in each other's dorm room each night and just do homework together the rest of the time. Is that love? What is their relationship like? Is it more a relationship formed out of fear of lonleyness than of love?

We're the youth of America, people. We've got a couple more good years in us before we have to put on that fucking tie and work for a living. Maybe the idea of a committed relationship should be saved until we've seen all that's really out there. That person you're with right now...How do you know he's the one for you? How many other people have you had some form of deep communication with in your young life? Do you still view a relationship in the "High School" sense? Do you view a relationship as a sort of status symbol? Is that person you're with with you more because you're afraid you'd be less of a person single than you are now?

'Cause I want, I need, nothing less than you
I want nothing else at all

Could it be that our entire idea of love at this age has been formed by the media? We're been bombarded with this desperate notion of love from all angles: Movies, Music, TV, Poetry...They're all guilty. The youth of today have been made to believe that we're not able to function if we don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend in our lives. You know what else? It's getting worse and worse to kids these days than it even was for us. My niece is in 2nd Grade and she's already asking some questions about adult topics that I still don't have the answers to. That's the shit kids are getting fed these days and it really makes my head hurt.

Have you ever seen an elderly couple where one of the people is handicapped beyond self-suficiency? Their spouse devoting their remaining time to caring for them is love. That's devotion. That willingness to stick by the side of someone through thick and thin because you've connected with them on such a deep level that you'd have no problem giving it all up without a second thought to be with them through the darkest times you'll ever face is what it's all about. That's real, man. Writing fucking depressing poetry and contemplating suicide because your girlfriend of 3 months left you for some other skinny Goth nut-case at a Slipkot concert isn't love. That's insanity. That's where we've gotten to, though. There are College-aged kids at this very school who have ended it because they couldn't handle the thought of being without their girlfriend or boyfriend. AT BEST, YOU'VE BEEN ALIVE SLIGHTLY OVER 2 DECADES. YOU HAVEN'T SEEN 10% OF THE SHIT YOU'RE GOING TO SEE IN YOUR LIFE. No juvenile notion of anything, let alone love, is worth that.


"That's when I realized I really liked those things about her, but I didn't love them. I didn't love her."

I think the overall message I've been mulling over in my head is that I don't know how we can understand love if we don't even understand ourselves. Take me for example: I'm a mental and emotional voclano of crazy, people. I haven't eaten a Cheeseburger in 2 1/2 years because I'm afraid it will be the trigger for a quick desent back into "Fat Colin." I do 200 situps a day not because I want a 6-Pack, but because I'm afraid that Grilled Chicken Breast I had for lunch will give me a beer gut. I go to the REC Center 6 days a week and I don't even know why I go anymore. I forgot 4 months ago. I just go out of rexlex. I'M INSANE. Sure I've gone out on dates, and I've even been really close to someone who I thought at the time that I "loved". With the ability to look back at the mistakes I've made and the paths I've not taken, though, I'm left wondering this one thing: How the hell could I even attempt to be right for anyone when I'm not even right for myself? I'm sure you're all the same way in a slightly less "touched" fashion.

I think that, if we really take a look inside ourselves, we'd find that we often have no clue what it takes to be in a lasting relationship. Is it convience? Those never last. Is it to satisfy your feelings of lonleyness? A relationship for personal benefit is more of a "buisness arrangement", wouldn't you say? Is it love? I think so, but if it is, then I'm probably fucked. If so, I haven't formed a bond I could actually consider love with someone since my Niece was born 8 1/2 years ago. I was 13 them. I'm almost 21 now and I often wonder just how far I've actually progressed. I wonder how far any of us have. How much longer until we break this "High School love" mindset?

A Jaded Asshole,
Colin

I'm working on a new post. Sorry for being gone so long, the two of you who actually read this.