There is a naturally-occuring amnesia that masks mothers' memories of the pain of childbirth. This mechanism enables mothers to forget past delivery trauma and face the prospect of giving birth again. Otherwise, all human families would have no more than one child.
There is plenty of debate about the truth of the above statement. Some mothers I've asked about it have generally agreed with the statement, some have not, and some looked ready to do me violence for suggesting it. It may well vary widely from one individual to the next. In my exhaustive ten minutes of actual research, it appears that about half of all mothers rate their pain as significantly less five years after the birth than they had immediately following. For 16%, the opposite is true.
The same might be said for a slightly less strenuous act of creation: songwriting (and I have zero research available to back up this supposition). I do find it a bit weird how sketchy my memory is about the 'birthing' of most of my songs. The lyrics, at least, are there to remind me of what I was trying to get off my chest - but as for how difficult each tune was to bring to fruition, the discarded ideas, time spent and degree of doubt - with the odd exception, there is only the occasional glimpse of a ghost of memory.
Perhaps if memories were more accurate, every songwriter would have written only one song per lifetime.
I can tell you that most of the songwriting process is actually fairly agreeable - at least, for me. Working from the germ of a musical idea - a mood, a rhythmic or melodic motif, a phrase, etc. - I'll sit somewhere public with a coffee and notepad and cobble together lyrics. Some days I'll write an entire song in a 1-hour sitting, some days I'll just have a few pages of stream-of-consciousness ravings, perhaps a useable stanza or two, or something that I re-evaluate the next day, for better or worse. Sometimes I'll even have to fight off sleep (sitting still at the end of a workday while mentally word-hunting can sometimes be a powerful sedative for me. Go figure).
In a recent interview, Pete Townshend said he has gone through long periods of debilitating self-doubt as a songwriter, and he believes such notables as Paul Simon, Billy Joel, John Lennon and many others go/went through the same agonies. The only songwriter who he claims does not suffer such doubt is Sting. This may well be true - but I do know Sting went through a time of believing he had to truly suffer in order to bare his soul enough to write good music - and he claims the belief nearly destroyed him.
Arguably worse than self-doubt...
I can't say I'm hounded by self-doubt per se, but I do seem to suffer clashing philosophies to a small degree when writing lyrics, and to a much greater degree when I'm fleshing out the musical content of a song. The bone of contention is usually: do I keep this simple, or do I try to push the musical envelope? In simplicity, I run the risk of producing yet another three-chord, disposable pop-tune (although someone like Daniel Lanois or Tom Waits can do amazing things with three chords). Taking the other tack, I may end up with something that sounds contrived, pretentious or just unnaturally weird (plain-old weird, on the other hand, can sometimes be just fine). I certainly went through a stage about twenty years ago of trying to sound clever and frequently dash musical expectations in my songs. Not many of my 'clever' tunes survived to see my current set-lists - but those comfortably between simple and clever have weathered the years pretty well relative to the rest of my songbook.
Part of the reason I bring this up now is that I'm currently 'in labour'. I've been wrestling with a song for a few weeks now, off-and-on. I don't know if this tune will eventually see the light of day. The lyrics weren't too much trouble, and the general 'shape' of the chord progression seems solid enough...but the devil is in the details, and hammering out a natural-yet-distinctive melody to put over some quirky chords is proving a bit of a trick. Here is a snap-shot of songwriting struggle, before the song is completed or discarded, and the rigor is forgotten.
Not ready for morphine yet, Doctor, but it ain't comfy.
I also have a very strong feeling I've been here before.
Perhaps nearly every time I've ever written a song...
The good news is that the next stage is usually a lot of fun. The chords and melody are in place, and now the atmosphere can be developed and accentuated through arrangement and recording techniques. There's a beacon toward which I can focus my energies. Maybe that's what helps me forget the difficult stage of songwriting. I get to name and dress my baby.
In the meantime, though, I sit in my little studio with my red G&L tele (a.k.a. ASAT Special, for you sticklers out there), and I do a lot of strumming and humming. Not exactly glamourous, but at least my feet are on the floor, and my knees are quite decidedly together.
Counting my blessings, believe me...
There is plenty of debate about the truth of the above statement. Some mothers I've asked about it have generally agreed with the statement, some have not, and some looked ready to do me violence for suggesting it. It may well vary widely from one individual to the next. In my exhaustive ten minutes of actual research, it appears that about half of all mothers rate their pain as significantly less five years after the birth than they had immediately following. For 16%, the opposite is true.
The same might be said for a slightly less strenuous act of creation: songwriting (and I have zero research available to back up this supposition). I do find it a bit weird how sketchy my memory is about the 'birthing' of most of my songs. The lyrics, at least, are there to remind me of what I was trying to get off my chest - but as for how difficult each tune was to bring to fruition, the discarded ideas, time spent and degree of doubt - with the odd exception, there is only the occasional glimpse of a ghost of memory.
Perhaps if memories were more accurate, every songwriter would have written only one song per lifetime.
I can tell you that most of the songwriting process is actually fairly agreeable - at least, for me. Working from the germ of a musical idea - a mood, a rhythmic or melodic motif, a phrase, etc. - I'll sit somewhere public with a coffee and notepad and cobble together lyrics. Some days I'll write an entire song in a 1-hour sitting, some days I'll just have a few pages of stream-of-consciousness ravings, perhaps a useable stanza or two, or something that I re-evaluate the next day, for better or worse. Sometimes I'll even have to fight off sleep (sitting still at the end of a workday while mentally word-hunting can sometimes be a powerful sedative for me. Go figure).
In a recent interview, Pete Townshend said he has gone through long periods of debilitating self-doubt as a songwriter, and he believes such notables as Paul Simon, Billy Joel, John Lennon and many others go/went through the same agonies. The only songwriter who he claims does not suffer such doubt is Sting. This may well be true - but I do know Sting went through a time of believing he had to truly suffer in order to bare his soul enough to write good music - and he claims the belief nearly destroyed him.
Arguably worse than self-doubt...
I can't say I'm hounded by self-doubt per se, but I do seem to suffer clashing philosophies to a small degree when writing lyrics, and to a much greater degree when I'm fleshing out the musical content of a song. The bone of contention is usually: do I keep this simple, or do I try to push the musical envelope? In simplicity, I run the risk of producing yet another three-chord, disposable pop-tune (although someone like Daniel Lanois or Tom Waits can do amazing things with three chords). Taking the other tack, I may end up with something that sounds contrived, pretentious or just unnaturally weird (plain-old weird, on the other hand, can sometimes be just fine). I certainly went through a stage about twenty years ago of trying to sound clever and frequently dash musical expectations in my songs. Not many of my 'clever' tunes survived to see my current set-lists - but those comfortably between simple and clever have weathered the years pretty well relative to the rest of my songbook.
Part of the reason I bring this up now is that I'm currently 'in labour'. I've been wrestling with a song for a few weeks now, off-and-on. I don't know if this tune will eventually see the light of day. The lyrics weren't too much trouble, and the general 'shape' of the chord progression seems solid enough...but the devil is in the details, and hammering out a natural-yet-distinctive melody to put over some quirky chords is proving a bit of a trick. Here is a snap-shot of songwriting struggle, before the song is completed or discarded, and the rigor is forgotten.
Not ready for morphine yet, Doctor, but it ain't comfy.
I also have a very strong feeling I've been here before.
Perhaps nearly every time I've ever written a song...
The good news is that the next stage is usually a lot of fun. The chords and melody are in place, and now the atmosphere can be developed and accentuated through arrangement and recording techniques. There's a beacon toward which I can focus my energies. Maybe that's what helps me forget the difficult stage of songwriting. I get to name and dress my baby.
In the meantime, though, I sit in my little studio with my red G&L tele (a.k.a. ASAT Special, for you sticklers out there), and I do a lot of strumming and humming. Not exactly glamourous, but at least my feet are on the floor, and my knees are quite decidedly together.
Counting my blessings, believe me...