How I Start My Day
My morning writing routine
Wherever I am in the world, I begin my day with coffee and my writing notebook.
Have I mentioned The Four-Fold Way? :
1. Show up
2. Pay attention
3. Tell the truth without blame or judgment
4. Be open to outcome
I don't discipline myself to write every day, it's just what I like to do. It's a kind of meditation/balancing thing. A very big percentage of what I write never makes its way into a finished song, but then, any song that gets finished at all, and makes it into my live set, makes me happy.
I keep my eyes and ears open. I watched a YouTube video on waxing old wood floors and the girl said, "Don't make perfection the enemy of the good." That went into my notebook. I love listening to my 22-year-old daughter talk. It's a generational thing, new slang and new perspectives on just about everything. Of course, she grew up in Pacific Palisades and Malibu, California surrounded by affluence, ambition, and the entertainment machine. I grew up with Irish working parents in Bangor, Maine, as far away from Los Angeles as you can get, geographically and otherwise.
I suppose I am some kind of mixture of introvert and extrovert, the extrovert side coming mostly from playing in bands since I was 12 years old, but my usual Saturday activity was hanging out at the library reading about the big world that I would one day visit and live in.
I discovered jazz by reading DownBeat magazine, Patti Smith from perusing the Village Voice, and the music of New Orleans by reading Rolling Stone magazine, all of which would have a great effect on my life ahead.
All my songs begin with the lyrics first, although there is usually a rhythm figure and melody running in my head along with the words on the page. The exception is when I am asked to write lyrics to an existing melody. Do you remember the powerful movie "The Pianist" starring Adrien Brody? I wrote lyrics to the music of Władysław Szpilman, whose intense life story that movie was about. They are experimenting with a Broadway/West End show using these songs and storyline.
Here is one of the songs I wrote lyrics to:
Most modern songwriting involves sampling, drum programming, making loops, etc. My preference is to write on acoustic guitar and sing it into my iPhone voice memos until I have something that holds up, as-is. The next step is to perform the song to a live audience, to see if the key and arrangement feels right. It's not so much that the audience will let you know what they like or not, though they will, but a sense of how it feels as I play it, what is working and what might not be working. Then, if I pass that test I go into the studio and record with all the same tools everyone else uses.
Here is a song in progress recorded at my kitchen table into my phone. It's called "Mustang"
https://on.soundcloud.com/onJwLJEDgcYTMB8q6
It uses a lot of Spanish, because the English word Mustang is a bastardized version of the Spanish word Mestengo, and because I love the poetic beauty of the Spanish language, which is very different depending on which Spanish language country we are talking about. Spanish in Los Angeles is often Mexican and Guatemalan, and quite different from Madrid, Argentina, or...
Mustang
It was a wild night, rain then wind
Clouds raced past the moon
I’ve never chased anything in my life
But I wanted you
You can't tame a wild thing
Why would you want to
You said "Dame mas duro baby"
Bang bang
Mustang
Los animales tienen miedo
of Thunder and lightening
They pray to gods unknown to us
I gave her a Saint Christopher medal
But neither devils nor gods does she trust
All I can give you is the hunger in my heart, mi amor
El amor es yin and yang
Mustang
Ojo de loca no se equi voca
No, no beast of burden will you be
You won't be burdened by love
Not by anyone
Not by me
All the pretty horses
Hush now baby don't you cry
Animals of prey run on
instinct,
Fight or flight
In the desert night, sky
A million stars sang
Run baby run
Mustang