In case you haven't heard the story about the son who asked his parents for a pony every year, I will tell the shortened version. So harassed by the child every Christmas for a pony, the parents decided this Christmas to play a cruel trick on the son. They purchased a large burlap bag of horse manure and put it under the tree. On Christmas morning, they came downstairs to find him shoveling it into the living room fast and furiously. "What are you doing?" they screamed in horror. "With all this horse manure, there's bound to be a pony in here somewhere," the boy replied.
I have thought of this story more times than I can count, as I've sat with students, collaborators and colleagues looking for the songs in the long, often fascinating stories of their lives. It's a little like the children's puzzle where the page is filled with dots or any repeating pattern, and you're supposed to find the bird or the cat or dog in the pattern. Once you find it, it's hard to believe you couldn't see it before. But it sometimes takes a trained eye to find it. Sometimes we're just too close to our own stories to see the poetry in them, or the point, or the lesson. Frequently non-writers have things happen to them which are sheer poetry. It's just that they seldom know it. The realization, the metaphor, the song is just sitting there, biting them on the nose. But they don't recognize it. Then a songwriter comes along, hears it and is knocked out by the power of the story. And a song is born.
Generally if you're getting the story from someone else's life, it's helpful to totally immerse yourself in what actually happened. And, if possible, relate it to something in your own life. The truth that makes the big difference between art and fluff will be there in both your lives, and without it, it's just another song written around "a good idea," as Nik Venet talks about in his workshop.
So how do you find the kitten in the dots, and realize the pony may be nowhere near the bag of manure? The pony in the bag of manure? Well, it's helpful to have another person to bounce it off of, and if that person knows which questions to ask, you're on your way. A new student of mine, Matt Hennager, came to me with a story about how a girl broke his heart because he was really in love with her, and she kept crying on his shoulder about other guys. Of course, this story has been written before, but not his story, in particular. So I got him to talk to me about it and we talked and talked and talked. Eventually, he said some things that determined the direction of the song. Two prospective titles came out: "The hero didn't win this time," and "Why not love me, instead." These two songs would be developed quite differently. So finding the song within the story required some specific questions. For the first title, I asked him what he did that was like a hero--give me examples of times she really tested his patience and understanding, times he came through for her with valiant actions, times he was obviously "the good guy." He would get off on other tangents about the relationship, because that's natural. But I would just keep bringing him back to the topic at hand. For the second title, "Why Not Love Me Instead," I asked him to tell me times she treated him like a friend, times she said she couldn't have made it without him and other such comments, incidents where she showed her gratitude in ways that made it even harder for him to be her friend and not her lover. Once again, he would start talking about other subjects regarding her, all of which were factual, but would have been red herrings in this particular song. So after a long interview, I sent him off to think about it some more, but to think about it along the lines of the questioning I had put him through. Now he was focused. Now he was writing the song, not just facts about his ex-girlfriend.
Another student named Stephen Mac wanted to write about an experience he had written in his journal. He went to a barber shop where men of an older generation talked among themselves as they listened to Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin on the radio. That, in itself, didn't seem like a song. In talking about it, he mentioned an uncle of his. I asked him if the men in the barber shop reminded him of his elders, his uncle in particular. He went on to say yes, that his elders had had a tremendous influence on him, and that his uncle had spent a year teaching him to be an electrician's apprentice. During that year, he said, he learned one thing. He learned he had to be a musician--not an electrician. Somewhere in the conversation he said that his uncle "understood a lot about life and mechanical things, and maybe life as a mechanical thing." I stopped him and told him to make a note of that. So what did all this have to do with the men in the barber shop? I asked him to tell me the difference between his experience with the men and his memories of his family. He came to the conclusion which became the concept of the song--the realization, the win, the ending plot point. When he was in the barber shop, he could simply observe and leave it all behind. He walked in free and walked out free, without the baggage he once carried from his elders. In the writing of the song, he may discover the point of freedom came earlier--when he finished his apprenticeship. He hasn't written it yet. So I don't know. I just know that he now has a concept, not just a journal entry. He has a realization and a moment that meant something to him which may be translated into a more universal feeling---freedom from the control of the past. How he uses Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin's being on the radio, the conversations of the old men, the uncle, the apprenticeship, the comparison of present to past, the feeling of freedom at the end of the incident---these will tell the tale, literally. He will use as many visuals as possible, and if done skillfully, the listener will have the realization along with him. No spoon feeding allowed. Shortly after our discussion, he called with his title...."The Old Standards." I think the concept is in good hands.
Finding the song in the story is actually what a lot of professional songwriters do when they write with an artist who may not be an experienced writer. The artist tells the experience. The songwriter finds the song. Then, when the singer sings it, it's his/her story. Without a professional collaborator, if left up to their own storytelling chops, some artists might tell a true, factual story of their lives. But the audience is left, forever, looking for the pony.
© 1996 Harriet Schock
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