Swallow Up The Sadness and Other Lessons (Not) Learned
There's a brand new song in the Music section. It's called "All This Useless Beauty" and it's one of those you write to keep from screaming. Literally fell out of me as I was driving and I kept having to pull over so I could write the words down and most of it wound up on the back of a warranty card in my glove compartment which was the only scrap paper I had and meanwhile I kept playing this one song by this Irish band Bell X1 over and over and so the chords are simple and don't change much and it's about as sad as anything I've written in a long damn time.
It was a bad drive.
The song I was listening to was "Eve, The Apple Of My Eye," which is a stupid title for a gorgeous song. The band is an Irish outfit called Bell X1 and they used to be Juniper when their lead singer was Damien Rice. If that tells you anything about the level of sadness this song attains. In case you're wondering, writers can get "in the zone" just like athletes and once there you never want to break the mood. So I kept replaying this one song about 15 times 'til I got everything down. The road is the tail end of 277 in Charlotte and it's a good road to write on as it literally goes nowhere for 20 miles so you have plenty of spots to pull over, scribble something down, and then start driving again. I think the warranty card was for my car CD player which still works pretty well, thanks.
I'm almost positive I cribbed the title from an old Elvis Costello album. I've never heard the album (not a fan) so I'm fairly certain I didn't (consciously) steal anything except the idea of wasted potential. Something that looks so perfect on the outside and then destroys you up close. Or perhaps I'm being melodramatic. I've been known to do that before...
The only one who's heard it so far is my good friend and roommate Kevin. He caught the first-ever run-through back at the house as it was spilling out of me after that car ride. He thinks it's incredible that a song can just appear out of nowhere as I open my mouth and I agree. On the rare occasions it happens, it is pretty amazing... A gift from God above, as it were.
Of course every circumstance around it feels more like a curse. (Is that dramatic irony or situational irony? Help me Alanis...) And I'd just as soon write some happy songs every now and then, thanks. That was the impetus behind "Swallow Up The Sadness," which was penned some seven years ago (1998?) under very similar circumstances and now feels like the spitting cousin to "Beauty." (They share the same chords anyway.) It's the age-old trade-off between good art versus a good life: Do you want to be early Billy Joel with a chip on your shoulder and the songs to prove it, or do you want to be later Billy Joel, happily married to Christie Brinkley and writing stupid crap like "We Didn't Start The Fire"??
But back to "Swallow Up The Sadness." That was a purger too, one of those gut-wrenching break-your-heart ones that you don't get too often and thank your emotional health for that. I seem to remember it prompted a pretty good sea change in my life afterwards, so maybe I've got that to look forward to again. I hope so. Continually writing about the heartbreak in your life and all the people who do you wrong is a dead end as you get older, because after a while the simple truth is that you yourself are making these bad decisions. And really, man... By this point you should know better. I mean, you can't turn feelings on and off like a faucet--but nobody's holding a gun to your head either and forcing you to follow your heart through to the bitter end, well after the point when logic dictates that things are going to end badly.
I think I'm dashing myself on the rocks to get a better view of the wreckage...
That's me in 1998, being remarkably self-aware for a change. Shame I haven't progressed much past that point.
But I would give up all the songs I have yet to write, just to feel my fingers brush the hair from your eyes....
Thank God I still believe in that line too.
Take care everyone,
Rich
It was a bad drive.
The song I was listening to was "Eve, The Apple Of My Eye," which is a stupid title for a gorgeous song. The band is an Irish outfit called Bell X1 and they used to be Juniper when their lead singer was Damien Rice. If that tells you anything about the level of sadness this song attains. In case you're wondering, writers can get "in the zone" just like athletes and once there you never want to break the mood. So I kept replaying this one song about 15 times 'til I got everything down. The road is the tail end of 277 in Charlotte and it's a good road to write on as it literally goes nowhere for 20 miles so you have plenty of spots to pull over, scribble something down, and then start driving again. I think the warranty card was for my car CD player which still works pretty well, thanks.
I'm almost positive I cribbed the title from an old Elvis Costello album. I've never heard the album (not a fan) so I'm fairly certain I didn't (consciously) steal anything except the idea of wasted potential. Something that looks so perfect on the outside and then destroys you up close. Or perhaps I'm being melodramatic. I've been known to do that before...
The only one who's heard it so far is my good friend and roommate Kevin. He caught the first-ever run-through back at the house as it was spilling out of me after that car ride. He thinks it's incredible that a song can just appear out of nowhere as I open my mouth and I agree. On the rare occasions it happens, it is pretty amazing... A gift from God above, as it were.
Of course every circumstance around it feels more like a curse. (Is that dramatic irony or situational irony? Help me Alanis...) And I'd just as soon write some happy songs every now and then, thanks. That was the impetus behind "Swallow Up The Sadness," which was penned some seven years ago (1998?) under very similar circumstances and now feels like the spitting cousin to "Beauty." (They share the same chords anyway.) It's the age-old trade-off between good art versus a good life: Do you want to be early Billy Joel with a chip on your shoulder and the songs to prove it, or do you want to be later Billy Joel, happily married to Christie Brinkley and writing stupid crap like "We Didn't Start The Fire"??
But back to "Swallow Up The Sadness." That was a purger too, one of those gut-wrenching break-your-heart ones that you don't get too often and thank your emotional health for that. I seem to remember it prompted a pretty good sea change in my life afterwards, so maybe I've got that to look forward to again. I hope so. Continually writing about the heartbreak in your life and all the people who do you wrong is a dead end as you get older, because after a while the simple truth is that you yourself are making these bad decisions. And really, man... By this point you should know better. I mean, you can't turn feelings on and off like a faucet--but nobody's holding a gun to your head either and forcing you to follow your heart through to the bitter end, well after the point when logic dictates that things are going to end badly.
I think I'm dashing myself on the rocks to get a better view of the wreckage...
That's me in 1998, being remarkably self-aware for a change. Shame I haven't progressed much past that point.
But I would give up all the songs I have yet to write, just to feel my fingers brush the hair from your eyes....
Thank God I still believe in that line too.
Take care everyone,
Rich
posted by Rich at 6:19 PM
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