I arrived in Nashville to write songs for the first time on the day that Marty Robbins died. It was December 8, 1982. The timing of my arrival seemed uncanny to me because Marty was one of my biggest boyhood heroes. How this came to be is a story in itself.
Before my father retired he worked at WIP Radio in Philadelphia for over 50 years. The station played a little bit of everything in the early 1960s- from Perry Como to Charlie Rich to Bobby Darin to Marty- before turning to Sports Talk in the late 1980s.
Mom kept the radio tuned to WIP all day long while she tended house because it made her feel close to pop. Sometimes a DJ on the air, either Bill Webber or Ken Garland, would share a joke with my old man as he sat behind the engineer’s glass. That would be the highlight of our morning as mom ironed and I played in the kitchen. The little joke beamed him home again for a few seconds through the radio waves.
I used to imagine how things looked down there inside the tower at Rittenhouse Square- the electronics glowing with ten foot tubes, or maybe it was fifty foot tubes, with wires running everywhere like tentacles and stuff bubbling in strange tanks. And there was pop behind the glass wearing his Buck Rogers headphones that could hear music on Mars. All in my weird inner world.
Every once in while the station manager would cull the LP library to discard duplicates and worn records and dad would bring home a magical stack for me. In one of them was Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads”. Now this was a record made for stirring up the imagination of a young boy. I spent hours listening to it on my little suitcase turntable while the bright sunbeams crept drowsily across the floor and I slid over a few inches along with them so I could stay warm. I dreamed of gunfighters at night.
Marty’s tall tales were wonderful, but he wasn’t the only raconteur on the radio back then. Muscular story-songs were popular in those days. Johnny Horton sang “Sink the Bismarck” and “North to Alaska”. Johnny Cash was scoring with “Wreck of the Old ‘97” and others. Jimmy Dean did "Big Bad John". It was a good time to be a storyteller and a great time to be a kid who loved flights of fancy.
I’ve noticed that words in books and words in songs can evoke something in my brain that pictures and movies can’t. It’s almost as if actually seeing something that I’ve previously only imagined is sort of a let down. I don’t know why… maybe I should’ve lived in a time when the tribe story-teller was a mystic who sang his tales before the campfire.
Sometimes it seems to me as if all of our imaginations might be getting weaker, or maybe they’re just full of sludge. Maybe we’re so visually assaulted with images of violence and horror that language seems to be an insufficient stimulant. Our films use special effects that try to supplant our imaginations, and yet the computer graphics can rarely outdo our nightmares. I think the inner sludge needs a good stirring up occasionally, but maybe mere words won't whisk well (bad alliteration).
I had a close friend and collaborator who passed away a few years ago. He once wrote a song about a guy who hunted alien beasts in outer space called “Star Trapper”. It’s an amazing song, full of larger than life imagery and sound track potential. He wrote another one about the Algonquin Indians’ mythological spirit-possessor, the Wendigo. We used to sing it together and I always felt like we might accidentally call the Wendigo into our presence if we did it with just the right amount of mojo. That’s the power and fun of a freshly stirred imagination.
Losing my friend was tough. Losing Marty and the other story tellers of my childhood was like losing collaborators in my land of enchantment. I don’t think I’ve ever really replaced them.
copyright 2009 by craig bickhardt
Monday, August 24, 2009
Stirring the Imagination
Friday, August 7, 2009
Country Dignity
Where are the real people in country songs? Where have they gone? There's dignity in country people. Yes, they have trucks and muddy jeans out there, although most Music Row songwriters apparently never leave their condos long enough to see for themselves. If they did, they'd meet someone rather surprising.
Country folks have hearts and souls. They rescue the lives of colts and calves birthed in breach. They fix the roof and dig the well. They save and sacrifice to marry off daughters or pay their college tuition. They send sons to war or give them a parcel of the family land to farm. They stop and talk with strangers while they mend fences. They raise a neighbor's barn and lend tools to each other. They tell very funny stories. They grow strawberries and give hayrides at Halloween. They aren't always drunk at the bar down the road or drunk at the lake. Where are the real people in country songs?
I believe a songwriter should be a poet. He should speak the timeless truth and find the wisdom in simple actions. A song lyric doesn't need to lead the listener down the path like a dumb cow on a tether. It can be an invisible sword that wounds the heart without drawing blood.
By contrast, here is the kind of cheap limerick-verse we get from Nashville these days:
The rule of thumb in Nashville is: make her crude, make him dirty, put them in a truck (with a six pack sometimes), and it's a country song. Keep listening to country radio and you'll hear plenty more where that came from:
It's time to call this what it really is: bogus parody- and cynical parody at that. Let's bury it. Let's pronounce it dead. It's anti-poetry, anti-heart, anti-reality, and anti-country.
copyright 2009 craig bickhardt
Country folks have hearts and souls. They rescue the lives of colts and calves birthed in breach. They fix the roof and dig the well. They save and sacrifice to marry off daughters or pay their college tuition. They send sons to war or give them a parcel of the family land to farm. They stop and talk with strangers while they mend fences. They raise a neighbor's barn and lend tools to each other. They tell very funny stories. They grow strawberries and give hayrides at Halloween. They aren't always drunk at the bar down the road or drunk at the lake. Where are the real people in country songs?
I believe a songwriter should be a poet. He should speak the timeless truth and find the wisdom in simple actions. A song lyric doesn't need to lead the listener down the path like a dumb cow on a tether. It can be an invisible sword that wounds the heart without drawing blood.
By contrast, here is the kind of cheap limerick-verse we get from Nashville these days:
There were two karaoke girls drunk on a dareMy reaction to these lines is that life is pretty pathetic in some places. This is, in fact, what urban people do when they have no life. What about the stuff that really makes life good everywhere? Why does the working stiff need to aspire to this obnoxious spectacle on a Friday night? Can't he, for once, go to a town meeting and debate healthcare reform? Or do you think he's too stupid to do that? Go on, urban cynic, poke fun. Let's see you dismantle a tractor engine and have it running by sun-up. Let's see you run a family business on fumes and a prayer.
Singing "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher
Yeah, life was good everywhere
The rule of thumb in Nashville is: make her crude, make him dirty, put them in a truck (with a six pack sometimes), and it's a country song. Keep listening to country radio and you'll hear plenty more where that came from:
She wants her nails painted blackReal or bogus? "Wanted desperately: one goth redneck woman. She must have no idea what fun is, and prefer being thrown from a 2000 pound bull at the end of the date. I will shower her with little plastic Crackerjack toys (hopefully one will be a ring!) and affection. In return for winning my heart, she can waste my hard earned pay on $3 per gallon gas driving around aimlessly in my truck (which I never need), and keep every animal she finds along the way. Waiting anxiously for the woman of my dreams!"
She wants the toy in the crackerjack
She wants to ride the bull at the rodeo
She wants to wear my shirt to bed
She wants to make every stray a pet
N' Drive around in my truck with no place to go
It's time to call this what it really is: bogus parody- and cynical parody at that. Let's bury it. Let's pronounce it dead. It's anti-poetry, anti-heart, anti-reality, and anti-country.
copyright 2009 craig bickhardt
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A Blissful Surrender
Do you want to write songs, or do you need to write them?
If writing great songs were only as simple as wanting to do it, we'd all have dozens of them. It requires more commitment than that. If you're blown away by a song you hear or a book you read, rest assured someone needed to create it (even if it came quickly, the intense need to write was probably sustained for years). Great writers aren't really so gifted, they just have an impossible compulsion. They're "all in". The need keeps them awake when they want to sleep; it keeps them hungry when they want to be fed; it demands their attention when they want to daydream.
There are times when I catch myself looking for some point of entry like a junkie tapping on his veins. Yesterday's song is just yesterday's song-- a high that didn't last. If I had to go to dangerous alleys and midnight borders of the imagination for my fix, I probably would. There are those who see a work of art and feel a gentle glow inside. There are others who see a work of art and feel a fire in the blood to create one of their own. There's no escaping it, no letting it pass, no procrastination. It's an allurement as intoxicating as any substance known to man. When it isn't there, we ache for it. But where the need is deep, so can be the result and reward.
Whenever I'm "engaged to a song" I know there will be many drafts of the lyric. There will be moments when I want to rip out my hair because part of the melody isn't holding up. Bring it on. I fall sleep on the sofa in the den and wake up at the first light of dawn excited to begin again. Bring it on. When the song is finished there's a feeling of temporary wholeness I can't find in any other pursuit. Yes, only to begin again...but joyously in spite of it all.
You'll recognize your need if you have one. Let your creative hours be sacrosanct and uncompromised. Put life on hold. Throw caution to the wind (insert any more cliches you can think of here).
As I lay awake last night lamenting another day in which I worked for ten hours and produced not a single creative thing, I thought of all the contented folk who didn't create anything either, and who slept soundly with a pleasant dream. I wanted to feel contentment, rest, peace. I told myself that most words are written on sand. Most melodies die with the singer. Most paintings darken with the patina of the world's grit and grime. Why make anything at all?
I believe we make things because we are the pressure valve of the ultimate making of things. Through us escapes the blow-off of creative forces no one can imagine. That is our role in the big picture. There's really no self-importance in a creative act when you understand the mysterious and uncontrollable nature of it. It's all for the sake of an elemental energy in the pipeline that chooses your particular point of exit. Creative needs are like geysers in Yellowstone; warm salty mud being blown out of the way so the earth can keep its crust intact for another day. The earth doesn't respect geysers, it simply uses them. I am used, you are used; we're The Need incarnate and we'll never fully understand the unseen forces below the surface. There's no remedy for it but a blissful surrender.
copyright 2009 by craig bickhardt
If writing great songs were only as simple as wanting to do it, we'd all have dozens of them. It requires more commitment than that. If you're blown away by a song you hear or a book you read, rest assured someone needed to create it (even if it came quickly, the intense need to write was probably sustained for years). Great writers aren't really so gifted, they just have an impossible compulsion. They're "all in". The need keeps them awake when they want to sleep; it keeps them hungry when they want to be fed; it demands their attention when they want to daydream.
There are times when I catch myself looking for some point of entry like a junkie tapping on his veins. Yesterday's song is just yesterday's song-- a high that didn't last. If I had to go to dangerous alleys and midnight borders of the imagination for my fix, I probably would. There are those who see a work of art and feel a gentle glow inside. There are others who see a work of art and feel a fire in the blood to create one of their own. There's no escaping it, no letting it pass, no procrastination. It's an allurement as intoxicating as any substance known to man. When it isn't there, we ache for it. But where the need is deep, so can be the result and reward.
Whenever I'm "engaged to a song" I know there will be many drafts of the lyric. There will be moments when I want to rip out my hair because part of the melody isn't holding up. Bring it on. I fall sleep on the sofa in the den and wake up at the first light of dawn excited to begin again. Bring it on. When the song is finished there's a feeling of temporary wholeness I can't find in any other pursuit. Yes, only to begin again...but joyously in spite of it all.
You'll recognize your need if you have one. Let your creative hours be sacrosanct and uncompromised. Put life on hold. Throw caution to the wind (insert any more cliches you can think of here).
As I lay awake last night lamenting another day in which I worked for ten hours and produced not a single creative thing, I thought of all the contented folk who didn't create anything either, and who slept soundly with a pleasant dream. I wanted to feel contentment, rest, peace. I told myself that most words are written on sand. Most melodies die with the singer. Most paintings darken with the patina of the world's grit and grime. Why make anything at all?
I believe we make things because we are the pressure valve of the ultimate making of things. Through us escapes the blow-off of creative forces no one can imagine. That is our role in the big picture. There's really no self-importance in a creative act when you understand the mysterious and uncontrollable nature of it. It's all for the sake of an elemental energy in the pipeline that chooses your particular point of exit. Creative needs are like geysers in Yellowstone; warm salty mud being blown out of the way so the earth can keep its crust intact for another day. The earth doesn't respect geysers, it simply uses them. I am used, you are used; we're The Need incarnate and we'll never fully understand the unseen forces below the surface. There's no remedy for it but a blissful surrender.
copyright 2009 by craig bickhardt
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Music Circle
Falling in love with anything is a growth process; something that requires a little pondering and engagement; something we invest ourselves in. Remember when LPs (if you are under 30, mea culpa) didn’t come at us like bullets from an automatic weapon? We really didn’t have hundreds of new releases to choose from because there were no successful DIY-ers in those days. If David Geffin or Ahmet Ertegun or John Hammond didn’t sign the artist, we knew it was because they weren’t any good. We had a little faith in the taste makers back then. No one complained about a Rolling Stone issue, or a radio playlist because there was something for everyone.
Back in that misty era it was a big event when the Allman Brothers or Gordon Lightfoot or Stevie Wonder or Joni or Jackson released a new record. When Dylan's new records came out, time almost stopped. We savored those sweet moments of listening knowing it would be a long time before we felt like that again. We took some time to fall in love with the music, and sometimes it was a permanent affair. Sitting in the dark, focusing on the music, there was a chance-- just a chance-- the artist had something important to say. Listening could be intimate and fascinating. Most of the lyrics these days aren’t really meant for our full attention. We have no prophets and few real communicators.
Lately I find myself listening to more, less. I might enjoy a new CD once and never come back to it. Who has time to fall in love with music anymore? I know I’ve liked a few CDs enough to put them in my favorite stack. But then I’m swept downstream so rapidly I can barely recall the artist's name. I want that to change. Yeah, my internal clocks are winding down and everything outside moves so fast I can’t keep up... but really, there’s just too much distraction and very little of it is worthwhile. We lack time for appreciation.
I took a high school elective once called Music Appreciation. We just sat in class and listened, usually to a classical piece by a dead Austrian composer, or an Aaron Copeland treatment of a beautiful folk song. It was a relaxing class. I wonder if they still offer it?
Music is the eternal soundtrack for life, but it’s no longer a focal point of it. The music plays ever so agreeably in the background as we jog, or cook, or plan our days. We catch ourselves every once in a while thinking, “nice tune” and maybe we hum a few bars later on as we stand in line at Starbucks. But we aren’t engaged, really absorbed in listening like we were when there was little else to do. Ah, those dull, ancient times.
I've seen my daughter listen to music through one ear of her headphones, IM her friends, talk on the cell phone at her other ear, and read Harry Potter simultaneously. I can handle a stick of gum and the laundry at the same time. But I asked her once if she ever got together with her friends just to listen to music like we did in the old days. "Well, only if we're going to a concert, but then we like to dance and take stupid pictures with our phones and party..." Not what I was thinking at all.
But now my daughter loves the music circles that my old-head buddies and I still have at the house on occasion. We pick and sing till the wee hours, and it's warm and wonderful. She brings her close friends with her to these gatherings, telling them, "You're gonna LOVE this! This is SO cool!"
I guess I’m hopelessly attached to the way it was. I miss the communal experiences that brought us together. I miss the artists that understood music’s power to hold us in a trance, to break down barriers and inhibitions, to teach us more about us. It's all wallpaper now. There’s 100,000 new tracks waiting for us out there. We can redecorate our profiles in a heartbeat. There's no need for the music circle.
Photo: Clara Bien
this posting copyright 2009 by craig bickhardt
Back in that misty era it was a big event when the Allman Brothers or Gordon Lightfoot or Stevie Wonder or Joni or Jackson released a new record. When Dylan's new records came out, time almost stopped. We savored those sweet moments of listening knowing it would be a long time before we felt like that again. We took some time to fall in love with the music, and sometimes it was a permanent affair. Sitting in the dark, focusing on the music, there was a chance-- just a chance-- the artist had something important to say. Listening could be intimate and fascinating. Most of the lyrics these days aren’t really meant for our full attention. We have no prophets and few real communicators.
Lately I find myself listening to more, less. I might enjoy a new CD once and never come back to it. Who has time to fall in love with music anymore? I know I’ve liked a few CDs enough to put them in my favorite stack. But then I’m swept downstream so rapidly I can barely recall the artist's name. I want that to change. Yeah, my internal clocks are winding down and everything outside moves so fast I can’t keep up... but really, there’s just too much distraction and very little of it is worthwhile. We lack time for appreciation.
I took a high school elective once called Music Appreciation. We just sat in class and listened, usually to a classical piece by a dead Austrian composer, or an Aaron Copeland treatment of a beautiful folk song. It was a relaxing class. I wonder if they still offer it?
Music is the eternal soundtrack for life, but it’s no longer a focal point of it. The music plays ever so agreeably in the background as we jog, or cook, or plan our days. We catch ourselves every once in a while thinking, “nice tune” and maybe we hum a few bars later on as we stand in line at Starbucks. But we aren’t engaged, really absorbed in listening like we were when there was little else to do. Ah, those dull, ancient times.
I've seen my daughter listen to music through one ear of her headphones, IM her friends, talk on the cell phone at her other ear, and read Harry Potter simultaneously. I can handle a stick of gum and the laundry at the same time. But I asked her once if she ever got together with her friends just to listen to music like we did in the old days. "Well, only if we're going to a concert, but then we like to dance and take stupid pictures with our phones and party..." Not what I was thinking at all.
But now my daughter loves the music circles that my old-head buddies and I still have at the house on occasion. We pick and sing till the wee hours, and it's warm and wonderful. She brings her close friends with her to these gatherings, telling them, "You're gonna LOVE this! This is SO cool!"
I guess I’m hopelessly attached to the way it was. I miss the communal experiences that brought us together. I miss the artists that understood music’s power to hold us in a trance, to break down barriers and inhibitions, to teach us more about us. It's all wallpaper now. There’s 100,000 new tracks waiting for us out there. We can redecorate our profiles in a heartbeat. There's no need for the music circle.
Photo: Clara Bien
this posting copyright 2009 by craig bickhardt
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