Eleanor Roosevelt and My Adventures in Songwriting

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people”

I never thought I’d find myself quoting anyone named Eleanor, let alone the First Lady of the USA, but here we are. I’ve mentioned in a previous post (Starting a Band When You're 30) that my adventures in songwriting mostly consisted of 9 years of procrastination and self-imposed failure. What I didn’t realise at the time was that like anything, songwriting requires practice. What you never realise as a young musician is that although an album might be end-to-end 10-12 of great songs, the band probably wrote 5 times that many songs and discarded them as sub-par in the quality department. The result is that I should be about 35 by the time I start pumping out good tunes at any rate that could be remotely considered consistent. I’m OK with that.

So where am I going with this? Well, Eleanor’s chestnut of knowledge applies to songwriting. I mean really, what is a song but a discussion but an open letter to the world voicing your opinion about something? The key to good songs (so far as I can tell) is what you’ve got to say. If you write a song about boy-meets-girl-and-the-rest-is-history, or topical-politician/celebrity-is-immoral-and-doesn’t-deserve-your-respect, you’re not really discussing anything people haven’t heard before and nobody’s going to want to listen because they can easily get it elsewhere such as a school playground, the Oprah Winfrey show or tabloid newspapers. And chances are their lives are already flooded with at least one of those.

With events you’re stepping it up a notch, but essentially you’re just discussing people on a grander scale.

“Oh there was a flood today,
So many homes are washed away
And I should be on A Current Affair baby,
Because this is lame-eh?”

(When writing crap songs, be sure to include gratuitous use of the word “baby”)

I guess there’s something admirable in deciding to try and empathise with a larger group of people, it takes a bit of a leap to generalise a mass of people and not come off looking pretentious.

Ideas. That’s where the gold’s at, and I mean that in terms of quality because the masses will never take to music that makes them think no matter how far the ‘hipster’ fashion/lifestyle weasels its way into popular culture – skinny jeans and a shit haircut does not an art critic make. When it comes to writing songs that deal with ideas as opposed to the lesser content styles, the biggest hurdle seems to be getting over the idea that your songs need to make sense when you read it back to yourself. If you do that, you’ll never ever finish a song, take it from someone who knows that rather well. And if you have to make up a word, go for it, I wanted to say perspiring but I needed more syllables and so “perspirating” was born, and of the 4 or 5 people that have heard that song not one of them has noticed. Writing about ideas doesn’t mean completely abandoning people and events, but they need to be used to make a point; John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats is probably the undisputed king of this in regards to people, while Bob Dylan’s early work probably has the market cornered on the events side of things.

In no way by writing this am I suggesting that I’ve achieved the ability to write songs about ideas, quite the opposite in fact. I’m saying if you want to write good songs, aim for the ideas, but if you end up with people, keep writing anyway because it’s the only way you’re going to learn. For 10 years I tried too hard, when I learned to stop giving a damn, I learned to write songs, but like Texas Hold ‘Em, it takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master so I (and you) better get cracking.

Star Wars and the ethics of Artifical Intelligence.

Last night I was watching Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and just 15 minutes into the 2 hour film, C-3PO - the campiest gold humanoid robot in history - despairs with the words "Will this never end?'. Possibly the most thought provoking utterance in the much beloved saga, which for all it's other standouts leaves a little to be desired in the dialogue (just ask Alec Guinness, apparently he made many complaints to George Lucas about it). What's so special about this sentence? I'll tell you. The depth of this speech is unparalleled by anything throughout the 6 films of the series, here's why:

1. Firstly there is the very simple function it serves: It tells us about C-3PO's character. He's a fuss-pot, a dandy, a worrier, he represents the underlying neuroses of all the characters who are mostly wont to voice it themselves (with the exception of "I have a bad feeling about this" which is uttered no less than 7 times by 6 different characters). This point is especially pertinent given that as stated above, the sentence in question is uttered just 15 minutes into the first film of the series. In doing so it also sets him up as the perfect counterpoint to R2-D2, the representative of rebellion, fun and some damn good luck throughout the films.

2. Secondly, again this point relies on how quickly (or so it seems) C-3PO is willing to voice his desperation at how difficult his life has been. Did I mention it was 15 minutes into the first film? We're clear on that? Good. I'll continue. It represents incredible forward thinking on the part of Lucas, and if not forward thinking then just damn good world-creating. He simultaneously gave himself the room to create the much maligned (though loved by me and anyone that's not a pretentious douche) prequels, and set up the now infamous 'galaxy far, far away' as a place with an incredibly powerful sense of realism - this place existed before the film, and it will probably go on existing as the credits roll off the screen - brilliant thinking for 1977.

3. Thirdly, the melancholic part. Combined with an even earlier (9 minutes in) utterance from our gold friend "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life", it's really quite devastating. Many films have been made about artificially intelligent beings becoming self-aware and setting out to destroy the human race in order to ensure their survival that I don't think we've ever stopped to consider the drive that would lead robots to take this sort of action. C-3PO is built by a young Anakin Skywalker, and then abandoned, unfinished on a poverty stricken desert planet as soon as the opportunity to run off with a bearded old Buddhist presents itself. The next 20-50 years of his life is filled with near death (as much a robot can 'die') experiences, witnessing the deaths of many young rebels and foxy, foxy Natalie Portman, as well as the rise of an authoritarian regime comparable to Nazi Germany (tip: Jedi = Jews). So by the time we reach the 15 minute mark of Episode IV, it's not surprising to hear that C-3PO is beginning to think that the entire purpose of his existence is to be made to suffer repeatedly and unendlingly in an incredibly Sisyphean sense (and Sisyphus is effing HEARTBREAKING, I even wrote a song about it).

Yet the human race, determined to make it's own life easier and pack in more leisure time continues the pursuit of automating our lives through technology at an alarmingly exponential rate. You have to ask yourself: Can artificially intelligent androids really be that far away? Where was the mobile phone 10 years ago?

I fear for the human obesity epidemic, for the rise of stupidity amongst the sole species on Earth to maintain food chain dominance for thousands of years, but mostly I fear for the plight of the robot. We would spend so much time trying to recreate something so close to human, and then treat it with such inhumanity.

The shame of it all.