As soon as I got in the car to drive home last night I wrote a song. I’ll be posting the lyrics to my LJ, as looked at in the bright light of morning they seem, uh, a little on the ‘back of the hand to the forehead’ end of the spectrum, not that there’s anything wrong with that, that’s sort of what songs are for. Oh well, this is what happens when you challenge yourself to write something that doesn’t have a happy ending.
I know I’ve said this about 100 times and I keep forgetting it, but seeing live music is a really important feed for creativity. I just saw three live bands in a week! No wonder I start getting all antsy, and walking down the street singing. I wish I wasn’t so wasp-y sometimes, I’d sing in public a lot more.
Just for fun, a fraction of the lyrics for ‘The Hardworking Locksmiths of Sunnydale” which I started writing on Sunday.
When I got out of locksmith school
In the year of ninety seven
The old pros told me that there is
A locksmith’s earthly heaven
Be prepared, they told me
For work on work galore
But make sure that your stomach’s strong
You’ll see a LOT of gore
O Sunnydale, O Sunnydale
until you disappeared
You helped me pay my mortgage off
But man, you sure were weird.
Is “Sunnydale” meant to be a BF/husband or a place of employment? When I listen to songs on the radio, I find I REALLY listen to the lyrics more than I did when the songs first came out in my teenage/20 something years. Funny thing is that what I have taken as the meaning of the lyrics isn’t always what the songwriter if even writing about.
Debbie, you need to have a conversation with Allegra about this. Years ago when she was coaching me through learning how to appreciate any poetry written after 1900 (including hers) she told me that the person who creates art isn’t looking for a SPECIFIC response in the reader/viewer/listener, just *A* response. This is the case because part of the equation is provided by the consumer of the art, and for artists, if their work engenders A RESPONSE, that’s all they ask.
Ask Allegra about Dionysian/Apollonian perspectives on art as well…
Thanks, Nautilus3. Good to hear from you. Maybe Allegra will respond in her blog and/or I will talk to her about it.
Sunnydale is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference. The gang keep kicking in doors and breaking windows and of course you never see the people who are cleaning up the mess…. so I thought I’d write a song about the unsung heroes of the series. The reference to disappearing is literally true. Sunnydale is swallowed by the earth in the last episode.
Apollonian/Dionysian perspective on art…. Apollo wants your brain. Dionysus wants your drunken ass. Most artists appeal to one end of you or another==========, and whether you like that or not depends on the subject matter, your mood, and the excellence of the execution on the part of the artist. When I’m reading Dunnett, it’s the seamless flow of words and the crystalline precision of the description that grips me intellectually; when I watch TV I most frequently am driven by what the other end of me is interested in.
Allegra, if you had explained it to me like this before, I wouldn’t have been so slow to catch on.