Category Archives: Music

Truth Tears and Cash – Part 2

“Your responsibility is to tell the truth.”

Rosanne had said this more than once and it really struck me because of a problem with the song I’d chosen to play for the group. I had rewritten How Long ‘Til It’s Over so many times that it had little to do with its original subject: my frustration and sadness over a friend’s mental illness. I wanted to know if it was wrong to abandon the original subject and the feeling tone that inspired it. I suspected the song was now dishonest whereas in its original state it was just too painful. I also wondered if there was too little “furniture” in it, as Rosanne put it, things like the empty coffee cup, the flowers that were stepped on as he walked out the door, the scratch of her wool sweater. On the other hand I knew the song had potential with its memorable hook and singable chorus.

Rosanne's Essence of Songwriting class in 2000. John Leventhal took this. Some of the people in the photo, from left to right: me, Barney Miller, Anne Carley, Denise Moser, Bob Dawson, Patty Ocfemia, Mimi Cross, Rosanne Cash, Barbara Blaisdell, Suzanne Jackson Henry, Steve Kunzman and Reisa Conde.

Rosanne’s Essence of Songwriting class in 2000. John Leventhal took this. Some of the people in the photo, from left to right: me, Barney Miller, Anne Carley, Denise Moser, Bob Dawson, Patty Ocfemia, Mimi Cross, Rosanne Cash, Barbara Blaisdell, Suzanne Jackson Henry, Steve Kunzman and Reisa Conde.

When my turn came my heart raced, my voice fled and I was unable to tear my eyes away from the fingerboard of my guitar!

No one questioned the song’s subject or meaning, but Rosanne pointed out a soft rhyme and a phrase in the first verse that tended toward cliché. She suggested deleting the bridge altogether, not because it was bad but because it was unnecessary. The practical function of a bridge is to build tension in the song so that the chorus following it provides an emotional payoff. Rosanne suggested that when the first verse reprised at the end, I cut it in half and go directly to the final chorus. It would have the same function as a bridge (or a pre-chorus) plus I could save some better lines from the unnecessary bridge and use them to replace the weaker lines in the first verse.

Violà, problems solved. I explained how I had rewritten it many times and asked if it was wrong to abandon the original feeling tone and subject. No, said Rosanne, think of this song as a gift from your friend. Violà, no guilt.

“The feeling tone releases the material.”

In one of several copies of articles Rosanne handed out to us, author V.S. Naipaul is quoted: “There was a moment, almost an hour in which I began to be a writer. Somehow I found the right tone, and the tone released the material, and it all came together, and I could see my way clear.” Finding the right feeling tone might be a way to end a dry period or to dislodge a block, and a way to do that is to mine dreams for material.

When we finished going through each person’s songs we began a free association writing exercise to do just that. Rosanne’s letter had also asked us to jot down a few dreams. The exercise wasn’t going to focus on events or feelings but on a significant object that appeared in the dream: a building, a piece of clothing, an animal, etc. We wrote our objects down on blank paper and quickly wrote words and phrases without stopping, referring to the object whenever we got stuck. “Just write!” Rosanne said,  “Keep writing until you reach a point where you feel ‘Ah-ha!’ Don’t think. Just write.”

Each person described their dream image and their “Ah-ha” moment. Mine was a wedding veil that seemed to be turned inside out, and my “Ah-ha” was in realizing that the veil was not inside out, it was falling away from me. I began to cry as I described it, great wracking, heaving, snorting, noisy sobs — quite embarrasing. I hated doing this but Rosanne said, “It makes us love you more.” Violà, no armor.

I wasn’t the only songwriter to discover emotionally charged territory during this exercise. Before we ended for the day, Rosanne made certain that no one left the room overly distraught. “It’s no wonder this business has it’s share of drug addicts and alcoholics, artists who lose themselves and can’t come back,” she said. “Pat Pattison, poetry and lyric writing teacher at Berklee College of Music, has said that our job as writers is to go where the images are, get one, and show it to our listeners.” Rosanne continued, “But we need to be able to come back safely from frightening or sad territory because, as the Buddhists say, our hearts break a little more with each step along the path.”

Our homework that night was to write at least two verses and a chorus from our dream exercise. I was eager to discover my song. While I was walking back to my room a rhythmic and melodic phrase came to me, giving me something to work from. I used that and several phrases from the free association, completing my dream song, Here Comes the Bride, in about four hours. More than half of that time was spent doggedly searching for it both lyrically and musically, finding the right tone and staying with it. When I played it for the group the following day some people were moved to tears. Rosanne said, “you’ve been given a kind of miracle.”  That’s how I felt, too.

The songs that we wrote from our dreams were amazing!  Stunning, scary, funny, stark and tender, some staying close to the free association images, others veering off in new directions.

Listen to Here Comes the Bride

Go to Part 3

© Patti Witten

Truth, Tears and Cash – Part 1

“There is nothing more sacred to me than songs and songwriters.” After two and a half days of immersion in writing and listening to songs I felt proud to hear Rosanne Cash say this to our intimate group of songwriters. But I also felt a responsibility to be worthy of it and the example set by Rosanne — hit songwriter and daughter of Johnny Cash, Grammy winner, multi-gold recording artist and author whose career took a brave turn with the release of Interiors and The Wheel in the early 1990s.

In 2001 I was among sixteen songwriters selected from over 200 applicants to attend another of Rosanne’s “Essence of Songwriting” workshops at Omega Institute in upstate New York. Many of us had participated in the workshop before and were good friends by now. It was my second time, and to borrow singer-songwriter Caroline Aiken‘s words to an audience at the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference, I felt like I had truly “found my tribe.”

Rosanne Cash workshop 1997

Rosanne Cash (center) and students, “Essence of Songwriting,” 1997, Naropa Institute

It was a diverse group. Only a few of the nine women and seven men were professional musicians or songwriters; some were new to writing while others had been at it for decades. Some, like me, were just emerging as soloists while others wrote for bands; some had been having trouble writing, not writing much or not at all, and others wanted to simply be where writing and listening was the priority. Rock, pop, folk, country and more were represented.

We began by sitting in a circle of chairs in a comfortable room with an electric piano, many guitar cases, bright windows and lots of pillows. By the end of the weekend all of us would be sitting on the floor, lying on the pillows, sometimes in tears and often convulsed with laughter. I would have three revelations, would hear many intense, funny, and powerful songs, and I would write a song that would teach me a lot about myself as a person and as a songwriter.

Right away Rosanne said, “I cannot teach you how to write songs, I can only be with you as you try to discover your own voices.” She urged us to approach this experience with a beginner’s mind. “I have a lot of opinions about songwriting. A lot,” she said, explaining that her teachers — writers like Guy ClarkRodney Crowell and Townes Van Zandt — held songwriting as the highest form of honesty, honor and self-respect. She questioned the notion that songwriting is a craft, the word craft suggesting the songwriter is not as serious as the poet or the novelist. She asked us to listen as closely to each other’s songs as we would want them to listen to ours.

After making the wry disclaimer “I’m not much for new-agey stuff,” Rosanne led us in a guided meditation intended to remove the internal negative critic. The negative critic is that inner voice which scolds this isn’t any good, you can’t finish that, this line sucks, you’re hopeless, etc. The useful part of the negative critic, said Rosanne, the part that is honest and faithful in editing songs, would remain behind.

I had my first revelation at this point. I recognized the negative critic: fear, self-conscious and familiar.

A letter from Rosanne sent to us a week or so before the workshop asked us to bring a song for feedback and copies of the lyrics for the group. It said, “Please do not pick a song you feel really good about, as tempting as it may be to show your best stuff. Rather, bring a song that you feel has a lot of potential.”

While we listened to the songs each songwriter had brought, we made notes on our copies of the lyrics, discussed specific points after each performance, and returned the lyrics with our comments back to the songwriter. Many of the issues raised were familiar, such as avoiding the use of words that evoked grand themes: love with a capital “L,”  Life, Pain, even My Heart, because they have become meaningless clichés with overuse.

We heard three songs that night. The topic of the first song was a grown son’s lingering grief for his mother. Rosanne liked this unusual subject but urged the writer to cut unnecessary adjectives and syllables. The second song had lots of minor chords in both the verse and chorus. Rosanne told us that in old-school country music the writer’s rule was to save your minor chord for the chorus. For this song she suggested doing the opposite. Either way, the tension built in the verses should be released in the chorus. We returned to this structural principle often.

I loved this song’s opening line (“this is the last drink where I swallow my pride”) and I hadn’t found anything to criticize until Rosanne made her suggestions. My second revelation: I could insist that a song rise to it’s highest obligation without sacrificing my joy in it.

The third song described a sexual assault. Rosanne commented on how difficult it is to write about “issue” topics without sounding self-righteous. The story was harrowing but the song offered redemption in the chorus, “a baby changes everything.”

There were thirteen more songs to hear the next day plus a writing exercise. But before that there was the traditional late night song circle. It was good to be back in the tribe!

Go to Part 2

©  Patti Witten

Yard Sailing

“Yard Sailing” is a song for autumn, written in 2001 in DADGAD. I recorded it in my living room on James Twomey’s DAT recorder with the fire crackling in the background.

Yard Sailing
© Patti Witten

School bus whistles down the road
Mommy waves goodbye
8 AM tomorrow
“Yard Sale,” reads the sign

Broken lamps and tired shoes
empty photo frames
magazines and diet books
hockey sticks, board games

(chorus)
Yard sailing
please, no early birds
final sale, no regrets
no refunds, no returns

Knotted afghans, old LPs
bottles of perfume
paperbacks with broken spines
curtain rods, old tools

(chorus)

(bridge)
Driving down the bargains
counting on the change
all the leaves are spinning gold
in every yard the same

Treasures lined up with the trash
beer steins with the grails
easy to set free the past
just set it out for sale

(chorus)

Download the song

Alternate Tunings

Early this morning I thought I would play through “Another Minute More,” a song I wrote in 2001, and last played perhaps in 2003. I remembered nothing about the tuning or the chord shapes. So I re-learned it. Luckily, I kept a record of the tuning with the lyrics:

A E C# F# B C#

But I could not remember the chord shapes, only the sounds. So, starting with the “open” chord, a sort major 9th chord, I experimented going up the guitar’s neck in a standard scale. I started finding the chord shapes for the 3rd, the 5th, the minor 7th.  Then I had the chords for the verses.

The tricky one was the opening chord of the bridge. I put on Sycamore Tryst and listened hard, finally puzzling out the shapes. It was part ear, part muscle memory.

My memory is so awful, and getting worse. Scary thoght for a musician and songwriter. Perhaps I will forget this thought, at least for awhile.

Thank goodness for permanent records. And, yes, I intend that pun.

Three Girls and Their Buddy

I never “go out” — only if I am highly motivated. But when I heard that Three Girls and Their Buddy (Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin and Buddy Miller) were coming to The State Theatre in Ithaca on Feb. 9, 2009, I bought a ticket — a good one.

Playing in the round, Emmylou started with a Bob Dylan song. Patty opened with a Bessie Smith number. Buddy came out strong with a signature dark twang-rock original and Shawn also started with a cover. We were lucky to see Buddy at all. As it turned out he flew in from LA that morning after performing at the Grammy’s the night before in Robert Plant and Alison Krauss‘ band.

Practically everyone I know over the age of 30 was there in the sold out hall and it was a grown-up party atmosphere. I was pretty much mesmerized for the entire 2 hours. As the show progressed Shawn’s and Patty’s performances grew stronger. Unfortunately it wasn’t Emmylou’s best night. But I’m not complaining. I understand you can’t have a great night every time out.

The highlight for me was Shawn’s low-pitched cover of  Tom Waits’ Hold On, which she said she had not performed before. I loved hearing her own Wichita Skyline, and Patty’s new song near the end of the show. I didn’t catch the title.

As a member of the church of songwriting I am happiest when I worship in the company of great writers. It was a fine night for me and well worth the small effort of “going out.”

Here’s a video someone made from the balcony.

On the Death of John Martyn

My college friend Eric Amrine introduced me to singer-songwriter John Martyn in 1976 when we were just 20 years old. We were both guitarists and drawn to mind-altering experiences. Martyn’s Scots-folk-soul was instantly addictive: full of yearning, hypnotic, melancholy, angry-yet-sweet.

Just the other day my doctor, who is British and the same age as Eric and me, mentioned Martyn and Nick Drake to me in the same sentence. We were standing in the barn as the horses came in for the night, and our breath fell from our mouths like clouds. In winter, when the air is so cold that we are reminded of the thin line between liquid and solid, this is the music we listen to: John Martyn, Nick Drake. Solid Air is the record I still own. Martyn dedicated the title track of his best-known album to the brilliant and insomniac Drake, who died of an overdose at age 24.

Eric and I went to college a mere 200 miles from Woodstock, NY, where Martyn and other lights of the music world also lived in the late 1960s. Martyn once said, “Jimi Hendrix owned a house literally over the road. He used to fly up every Thursday in a purple helicopter. He was very quiet and used to tell me how much he loved the animals.” I was surprised to learn John Martyn was only 60.

John-Martyn-770-2-600x337

My capacity for denial is selective and applies to the passage of time. Eric is forever 20, for instance, and Martyn’s music is frozen with our youthful faces at that time. Yet death looms. It always has and always will, of course, but as my own age trespasses on the territory of the daily obituary, death is so close you can touch it. Every morning during this winter cold spell I worry about the deer and the feral cat that I have seen once, whose tracks I see stringing through the snow. How do they survive? How do the birds keep warm in their tiny feather coats? How do they hold on in the wind?

I don’t know. I hear Martyn singing, I don’t want to know about evil. I only want to know about love.