For all the songwriters out there, both novice and professional, who want a good read and a hard smack in the face back to our senses, theres a fine article in this months issue of _American Songwriter_. Its at the very end of the mag, penned by Peter Cooper (whom I do not know, but suspect, based on the read, hes an OK dude). Cooper highlights the genius of Tom T. Hall with his article, and reminds us that in order to really grasp what it is were trying to do, we have to look to those who do it best for inspiration and instruction. He mentions Tom T.s _The Songwriters Handbook_ in the article. I smiled because its one I read years ago, soon after I moved to Nashville, and after I had been run through the mill with Sheila Daviss, Jimmy Webbs, and a host of others books about songwriting (my ADHD only allowed me to get through half of the Davis text, and Webbs _Tunesmith_ I enjoyed because Im a Jimmy Webb fan, but didnt at all buy into some of the methodology he outlines--at one point I felt he was suggesting what amounted to using clinical trials to write a tune, yeah right…). Of all I read on the subject, Tom T.s book is the one I got the most out of, and the one I didnt find myself wanting to forget along my own journey. Somewhere in there I realized all those little tidbits of advice Tom T gives are supposed to give the writer a few tools to help with the process, but it is also supposed to get the writer to THINK--to think about why commercial songs work. Then I realized great songs, even the ones that arent commercial, work for a reason too: they are put together by writers who know what theyre trying to say, and who know what their listener is wanting (or not wanting) to hear. Cooper is right, Tom T. doesnt follow his own advice, but its because hes not interested in commercialism now. Some of his songs do, but his best work defies convention, as does every artists. Tom T. is one of those who knows not only how to write, he knows how to weave a spell with his words. This is something the commercial country music market seems to have forgotten or ignored by and large--to quote Cooper, a literacy and emotional clarity […] that appeal(s) to good old boys and presidents, to academics and grandpas, soldiers and hippies, teachers and students. The article becomes for me a call to arms. Now, more than ever, we songwriters need to revisit the works of those greats like Tom T. Hall, to be reminded of why hes in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the kind of writing it SHOULD take to get us there.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 18:35:29 +0000