Shut Up and Write Some Lyrics

Twenty years ago, I was an English literature major in college. I read lots of books, but found the academic climate stifling. Endless, soulless analysis nearly killed my love of literature, so I switched to media studies instead. Good thing, too. I would have made a lousy English teacher.

Over the years, I've tried to give the lyrics to my songs a certain fluidity and muscle that defies conventional rock song writing. Not to be a fancy pants, but because I wanted both the words and music to be equally engaging to those who cared to listen closely enough to hear them, yet remain unobtrusive enough to those who just wanted to hear the overall sound. And of course, I had a few things I wanted to say.

Many years ago, my bandmates would rib me about the complex lyrics in the songs I wrote for the songs we played. They knew I worked hard to come up with original lyrics that were consistently good and they appreciated it. But one day, they said, "Hey, Ken--did you ever think of writing normal stuff like, 'Oooh mama mama, gonna rock you all night long'?" Believe me, some days when I'm beating my head against the wall trying to put the right words to the right notes, I wish I could.

I don't make these stringent demands of the lyrical content of the music I like. I can barely be bothered with lyrics when engaged in recreational listening most of the time. I'm listening for an overall sound experience. If the lyrics are really amazing, that will leap out at me eventually. If not, I'm not too disappointed if the music and the vibe is really good. In that respect, I can utterly relate to the average listener because I'm not much different. If the lyrics of a particular piece turn out to be profound, it increases my enjoyment. But I don't come to new music expecting it. And thus, i am rarely disappointed. I like a little "oooh, mama mama" myself now an again.

The thing about writing lyrics is that you're treading a fine line between the desire to be autobiographical and the desire to relate and share common experience. In rock songs, personal obsessions become magnified to 70 millimeter Super Panavision Technicolor scale, and this increases the likelihood of appearing self involved to the point of ridiculousness. I'll be the first to admit that I sometimes cloak raw emotion in wordy cleverness, but that's only attributable to personal taste. My hope is that the gestalt of the whole thing will leave some sort of emotional impression on the listener. I don't mind heart-on-the-sleeve emotionalism when somebody else is doing it. In fact, I live vicariously through the work of performers whose ability to express themselves without restraint knows no limits. I admire and envy them.

The process of writing the lyrics for the album is underway. I've had a few ideas in my head as I wrote and recorded the music which I managed to write down. Through repeated listenings, certain vocal sounds came to mind--the babble of infants that sounds like words but are really inarticulate expressions of emotions not yet fully formed into ideas. I know at least what the words should sound like, if not what they actually say or mean. But as I sit down to write, the droll sounds typically from the mouths of babes mature into something intelligible. I try to write equally for sound and meaning.

True to my lit major roots, I often go back to the classic poets of past centuries to rekindle the feeling I get from reading something really good by someone who is unfathomably gifted at what they do. I always had somewhat catholic tastes in literature. I might even read the odd novel or two during this period to get a feel for unfolding drama.

I work in silence for hours, uninterrupted until I get what I'm looking for that day. Some days it never comes. Some days, inspiration comes in torrents. If I get stuck, I go on to another song and wrestle with that one for awhile. I used to keep dictionaries nearby--standard, thesaurus and rhyming dictionaries--but they're al online now, so that makes things a bit easier. I work exclusively at the computer. My eyes will no longer tolerate writing things by hand as they once did. I will write down the odd line if I'm away from home. Sometimes I send myself voice mails with a particularly good line. Any way that works.

I'm working on all the songs simultaneously. if an idea comes into my head for a particular song, I just open up the file for that song and start grinding away. I don't wait to finish one before I start another. I'm interested to see how this way of working will help the album become unified in theme as it is in music. Ideally, I'd love for the songs to have a running dialogue with one another, to let the themes stretch out over the eleven or twelve tracks. We'll see.

I'll let you know how things turn out...