It may be brief but I think the book is well worth reading because my biggest problem with song writing is not so much the words or the tunes but the attitude and the feeling. When I am in the zone a song just seems to flow, the really hard part is getting in that zone. This book has some great pointers about moving towards that state.
The Coen Brothers’ new film, Inside Llewyn Davis was inspired by this book. Only a few incidents from the book are represented in the film and even those that are are greatly changed. I like the 1960s New York in the film but I found it very bleak. This book is very different, whilst Dave didn’t have the financial success of his contemporaries like Dylan and Joni Mitchell he was a successful musician in his own terms. A good jazz/folk/blue guitarist and songwriter, able to make a living playing his songs. The descriptions of late 50s early 60s Greenwich village are interesting, as is the description of the life of a musician at that time, how he earned a living and the people he learned from. The stuff about the reverend Gary Davies are fascinating.I listened to the audio book version as I don’t have a lot of book time at the moment.It was well worth the listen.
You might be wondering why I have added this to a song writing blog. The main reason is that it gives a feel of the mind space that produced some amazing songs. How the people were living and making a living. How they worked as musicians, the coffee house scene and how it changed their writing. There are also a few more specific things that are interesting. Apparently if Dylan had a great line he wouldn’t worry too much if some of the rest of the song wasn’t as strong. He didn’t rework much, he just wrote another song.
Best Bit: Realising how much the 60s singers “borrowed” from what had gone before. Blues songs, folk songs anything that would serve as a source of inspiration.
This started as a song about wild wolves in Germany, then I realised they lurk everywhere in human form. I recorded the song in one take as I wanted to keep a raw feeling.
I loved “Songwriters on songwriting” by Paul Zollo but it was practically all American writers. Daniel Rachel has filled this gap. It’s amazing how many great people were willing to talk to him. 26 writers including Noel Gallagher, Ray Davies, Paul Weller, Jarvis Cocker, Billy Bragg, Johnny Marr, Damon Albarn and Laura Marling.
A song about those clubs that used to lurk down side streets in the scary part of the city.
I like this because it shows the simple structure behind the song.
I went to an excellent song writing course by Martin Sutton and he has put this site together as a social area for songwriters to share ideas and chat. Click on the logo above to visit the site.
UPDATE: The site has now closed. Not enough people using it apparently.
If you want to know more about the courses that Martin runs you can find out on his site.
It is often easier to sing something than to say it.
The BBC have an amazing program of talks, workshops and shows to encourage new artists. BBC Introducing
As part of this they have master classes. Each masterclass has an hour long session on song writing. For some weird reason they are not available from the home page but they are still there is you search around.
Here is a great session from from Tom Robinson, some really good ideas here.
This session has an interview with Garry Barlow and a longer session with Mark Ronson.
This session has an interview with Brian Higgins
This book is not often available on Amazon so there is no picture link. I will give details of how to get a copy later.
It’s a big book (890 Pages) and covers a huge range of subjects. It is also pretty quirky as the author uses wild west stories to make some of his points, but there are some great insights that I haven’t found elsewhere so I recommend checking it out. The first 6 chapters are available free on-line so you have nothing to lose. Read them here
The book ranges very widely so I will focus on just one area here so that you can decide if you want to explore further. One of the most interesting topics for song writers is the Chase chart. This is a diagram showing the harmonic movement of a song. The chords of the harmonic scale are written in a circle and arrows show the movement between them. The arrangement of the chords is rather clever, as you move round the circle clock wise each chord moves down a fifth (with the exception of the bottom chord.) The major chords are on the right and the minor chords are generally on the left. Any chords that are not in the harmonic scale are outside the circle. Here is an example from the book, the Star Spangled Banner,I chose this example because most people will know it. . In just a glance you can see what the song is about harmonically.
If you want a paper copy then the best option is to buy a copy from the publishers website . If you live outside USA/Canada then shipping puts up the price a lot. Another option is to download a PDF, this is what I did as I live in the UK, the only snag with this is that the PDF is protected so you need a special program to open it.
Best bit: The chase chart in chapter 6.
I found it really hard to give this a star rating, some parts are very innovative and really helped my song writing and worthy of 5 stars.. It does vary widely in usefulness so I decided to give it 4 stars, but since you can check out the first half for free I recommend that you see what you think.