Over Easy:Where Do Songs Come From?

I’ve thought a lot about this. And I’ve been able to ask some of the greatest songwriters of the rock era how they find inspiration.

The original spark can be many things, from an overheard snippet of conversation to the rhythm created by the sound of car wheels on a bridge, which was the inspiration for “Jive Talkin’” by The Bee Gees!

“Everything was a song,” Curtis Mayfield, writer of classics like “People Get Ready”, said. “Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love ...If you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.”

For me, those eagerly sought-after gems have arrived randomly, at times inconveniently, on a Greyhound bus, on the treadmill, in the ocean, in the shower, at a business lunch, and while working with other writers on a completely different song. I’ve gotten ideas for songs from the newspaper, from the title of a movie I’ve never seen and from a sign on an abandoned restaurant. Novelist Henry James said “a writer is someone on whom nothing is lost”.

We’re in the midst of a Beatle extravaganza, starting with the remix of the album “Let it Be”, and continuing with the 240 page “Get Back” book chronicling those famous 1969 sessions, and culminating in the Peter Jackson 3 part Beatles doc coming in November. For me, possibly the most fascinating event in all of this is the publication of “The Lyrics”, Paul McCartney’s “self-portrait in 154 songs”.

When I interviewed Sir Paul in London in 1989, I was expected to ask about his upcoming world tour, and then - current album, “Flowers in the Dirt”, but that was all preamble to what really interested me - the sources of some of the greatest songs in pop music history, including “Let it Be”, “Eleanor Rigby” and “Hey Jude”. McCartney did not disappoint, animatedly sharing details of his writing approach. He told the story of a car ride to John Lennon’s house for a writing session, during which the driver, in casual conversation, mentioned that he’d been working “8 days a week”. McCartney mimed scribbling down the title to the song that they’d write that day. He told me that finding a ‘real’ name, like Eleanor Rigby, was critical to the writing of that song’s lyrics. His story about the actual events behind the writing of “Let it Be” and the reference to his mother, whose name was Mary, was illuminating.

If there’s one skill that the successful creator develops, it’s the ability to recognize a good idea when it hits your radar. It’s knowing the difference between the good ones like bubble wrap and karaoke and dodgy ones like fuzzy toilet seat covers and the band name ‘Test Icicles’.

Along with recognition, you need the discipline to get it down. I was sent unexpectedly to L.A. from London, hours after the McCartney interview, to talk with Neil Young about his new album, “Freedom”. Neil had some very clear thoughts about finding and using your best ideas.

“It’s different every time. Sometimes I don’t have an instrument; I just have a piece of paper and I write the whole thing in my head … there are so many ways to write a song. Don’t ignore yourself. If you’re walking down the street and you’re a songwriter and you start hearing the song, don’t wait. Cause you’ll forget it and it’ll never be like it was.”

McCartney said much the same thing.

“There isn’t a way to do it. There’s no formula, so I’m always trying to learn how to do it. Every time it tends to be a different way… normally it’ll be somebody says something, like Ringo, ‘Oh, that was a hard day’s night.’”

Many artists rely on ritual to jumpstart their creative process. Your own personal voodoo. A famous French writer kept a drawer full of rotten apples and the smell would drive him to his writing desk. Flaubert wrote on his lover’s back in bed. Paul Simon bounces a ball off the studio wall until “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” arrives and Steven Spielberg drives the freeways, occupying his left brain and freeing up the right brain to come up with E.T.

There is a mystifying aspect to songwriting and many writers are superstitious or secretive about their technique. When I asked Elvis Costello to deconstruct a song, he said it was like taking a child’s toy apart. Jann Arden said, “I don’t even know what the hell I’m writing about half the time. It’s a mysterious process that I don’t care to understand cause I think that would take the fun out of it. I don’t want to know why the presents are under the tree when it’s Christmastime and I’m 6 years old.”

Songwriters talk about being a vessel for the song, suggesting that the universe will give you songs as long as you’re ready to receive them. It’s like the difference between weight lifting and yoga - instead of trying to squeeze out the idea, you allow it to happen. As Neil said,

“If you made it up yourself, it’s probably not very good anyway. Let it come through you and when it does, pick up on it, instead of going ‘that was cool I’ll have to remember that’.”

Keith Richards woke up in a Florida hotel room and recorded the riff to “Satisfaction” and went right back to sleep, forgetting all about it.

Not to get all mystical on you, but for me the song often starts out as a phantom presence, something I’m not sure I saw, but my eyes search for it in the dark. It’s a whisper where I can almost make out the words. And once you’re visited by the muse, in whatever form it assumes for you, it’s time to roll up your sleeves. I love what painter Chuck Close said.

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

While we’re engaged in the grunt work of composition, we honour the gift of the happy accident. When the Traveling Wilburys sat together for the first time in Bob Dylan’s backyard, no one had an idea to begin with, so while Dylan, Orbison, Petty and Lynne scratched their heads, George Harrison spotted a packing crate with the instruction “Handle With Care”, and presto, a song was started.

You might not use the term ‘happy accident’ in this case, but it was a unique type of musical serendipity, if we are to believe this story. In his book ‘Musicophilia’, Oliver Sacks talks about the Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich, who was hit by shrapnel during the siege of Leningrad. Years later, an X-Ray showed a metal fragment in the auditory part of his brain. Dimi said ‘Leave it!’, because every time he tilted his head to one side, he could hear a new melody and when he levelled it, the music stopped.

“War! What is it good for?” Violin concertos!