PROMPT: Learn a song you liked before you turned 13 years old.
I’m having a good time remembering the songs I used to like as a kid. Some of them, like Bryan Adams’s “Everything I Do, I Do It For You” I consider today to be so awful that I laugh at the thought of them (sorry if you’re still a fan). Mostly, I just liked Broadway musicals–The Secret Garden, Les Miserables, and the Phantom of the Opera in particular. When I was too little to know what I was listening to, I had a thing for Paul Simon’s entire Graceland album. So I had some good taste built in me. Also, I remember being obsessed with the song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
SONG OF THE DAY: Dead
The first band I ever loved (and there is a chance that it was the first band you ever loved, too–) was They Might Be Giants. Good God, I felt so cool listening to They Might Be Giants.
I had to make a last minute emergency drive across the country yesterday and so I didn’t get a chance to make a post. Today I’m playing catch up.
PROMPT FOR DAY 17: Learn a Woody Guthrie song.
If you know me, you know I love me some Woody Guthrie. I think it’s a singer/songwriter’s duty to keep his music alive, since he wrote hundreds of songs that are considered a big part of (our) American heritage. Check out this biography page if you need more info about this dude. There is a reason I call him Saint Woody. There is a reason I named my dog after him.
Because his songs are super easy (G/C/D anyone?), this prompt shouldn’t take too long to complete. You can find an archive of his song lyrics here. Feel free to add your own tune. You know, like you’re Wilco or Bily Bragg or something.
PROMPT FOR DAY 18: Write a song for a child.
It could be a children’s song. It could just be a song that’s dedicated to a child. By the way, Woody Guthrie wrote tons of them.
SONG OF THE DAY(s): Why, Oh Why
This is my favorite children’s song that Woody Guthrie wrote.
TODAY’S PROMPT: Learn a song someone else likes or that you associate with someone else. If you get good at playing it, maybe you can play it for them some time.
TODAY’S SONG: We Won’t Get Fooled Again
There is a game I like to play where I ask people which 1960s band they like the most out of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks. Apparently, says the friend who taught it to me, you can learn a lot about a person through their answer. I choose the Who. I haven’t listened to all of the Who’s stuff, but what I have heard moves and wows me more than any of the others. They are the only band I can listen to jam out without getting bored.
My father also loves the Who–has loved the Who since way before me. It’s either a music preference gene or I just like the music my dad likes. One of the two. He claims they lived in Detroit for a while before they were famous. He claims his brother saw them play in a high school around here.
Well, folks. It’s Father’s Day. Here’s my father’s favorite Who song.
If you’ve seen me perform, you know I have one of these and you might also know that I usually use it to start my set because it’s less stressful to play. Who knows, I may get another starter-song out of this prompt.
SONG OF THE DAY: Memphis Tennessee
This Chuck Berry song has two chords. He does does a lot with those two chords, though.
If you don’t know who Tom Waits is, and you’re a songwriter, you’re in for a treat. This dude has been writing songs since the 1970’s (maybe earlier) and has a huge range of styles and subject matter to delight his listeners. He can be tender and outright frightening. His songs have been covered by everyone who is anyone in the singer/songwriter field.
He’s kind of like Bob Dylan (who also gets covered a lot) because his voice is not exactly what we would call pretty but his songs lend themselves to all kinds of voices. The man just writes wonderful songs–songs that invite anyone to reinvent and play with what’s already, well, a solid piece of music.
For instance, if you’ve watched THE WIRE, you will recognize that each season begins with a different version of Tom Waits’s, “Way Down in the Hole.” High five to the person who complied all the versions into a single Youtube video:
Season 1: Blind Boys of Alabama
Season 2: Tom Waits (himself!)
Season 3: The Neville Brothers
Season 4: DoMaJe
Season 5: Steve Earle
My favorite Tom Waits album is called Mule Variations. I think it’s a good place to start if you’re not too familiar with his music.
SONG OF THE DAY: Chocolate Jesus
This is one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Kim Taylor, covering a great Tom Waits song.
PROMPT: Write a song with the same four chords repeated over and over.
People who write songs tell me that they either start with words or melody.I decided on this prompt because I want to see if I can start a song with the melody before the words. I usually write the words first.
SONG OF THE DAY: High and Dry
A fine four-chorder for your listening enjoyment. The BENDS is my most favorite of the Radiohead albums–probably because it’s the most singer-songwritery. I’m pretty sure that without this song, there would be no Coldplay.
TODAY’S PROMPT: Learn a song usually sung by someone who is not like you.
If you’re a black woman, learn a Rufus Wainwright song; if you’re a white woman, learn a John Legend song, if you’re a male of either race, sing an Aretha Franklin song, etc.
This prompt comes from my days in Bangkok singing in a cover band. If you didn’t know I did this, well, now you do. It’s a great story and hopefully it will be an essay one day, a famous essay, so you all can read it from some famously wonderful source.
When I first joined the band, the guitar player (named Lynchee) gave me a stack of 1990’s, early 2000s alternative/pop songs that were all sung by women. “Don’t Speak” was in there, for instance. So was “Top of the World” and “Zombie.” The whole covering other people’s music thing didn’t really click from me until I started singing U2 songs, or until I covered “Creep” by Radiohead.
The explanation was simple: I had more freedom with these songs. As soon as the audience recognized the song and then understood that I, a not-bald man but curly haired white woman, was going to be singing “Losing My Religion,” they dropped their expectations about how the song was supposed to sound. I think they liked that one the most because my version of it was, well, really different.
TODAY’S SONG: Always Be My Baby
David Cook knew exactly what I was talking about when he covered this song on American Idol years ago. For me it’s like, middle school meets whoa.
I have been waiting for this month since April, when I came up with the idea. I am so excited about it, that I actually wrote this post the night before.
asked me how she can participate if she’s a piano player? This is a good point. I play the guitar (see in the picture? I’m the giant with the guitar…) so I will be writing/learning songs on that. But I really hope Lindsay participates (because two are better than one, of course), so here’s my answer:
Write songs for the piano!
Or whatever instrument you play. My friend Paul rocks the melodica (besides the piano). I say, if you play the melodica, this month can be for you too. And you too, recorder/trumpet/flute players. It might be harder for you drummers. Basically, just try to learn a song a day. On days where I give a songwriting prompt, write a song that goes well with your instrument?
Okay, so here’s how I’m hopefully going to go about posts this month. Each entry will have one prompt and one song of the day with some thoughts about the significance of that song. They may or may not be related.
PROMPT FOR DAY ONE: Learn an old hymn.
Not a contemporary (Christian) song. An old hymn.
Now, I understand if you are one of those folks who gets all squeamish at the idea of anything that has to do with your corrupt church experience. If this is the case, you might get a similar experience out of choosing some song to learn that inspires some sort of feeling of transcendence for you. More props for you if you can find an old song that makes you feel this way.
Because Salman Rushdie told Bill Moyers that, “All art began as religious art.” I don’t know if Rushdie is right but it makes sense if he is. Music is mysterious. It invokes (in me, at least) ideas of the supernatural.
And so, songwriting month begins with a religious song. These are usually songs that have lasted centuries and often come from crazy deep places. You might want to investigate the story from where your hymn came. Most of them have Wikipedia pages, I think. There are lots of people on the internet obsessed with old hymns and their stories.
There are hymns all over the Internet. Choose one for any reason at all: because it’s pretty, because it hits you as somehow true, because the words are hilarious and gory (there is a lot of blood in hymns– fountains of blood in hymns), because it was your grandma’s favorite, because you’ve never heard it before and it has a cool title. Figure out how to plunk it away on the guitar.
SONG OF THE DAY: In the Garden
I love this Willie Nelson version.
Here’s why I chose this song:
1. It brings back memories of my performing arts high school in Detroit, when a group of students competed in a speech/drama competition with an eight-person version of the play, Rimers of Eldrich. This is a tremendously creepy play about a corrupt little town, and there is nothing like a group of city kids trying to pull it off (and they pulled it off well, if I recall). They returned to this song throughout, as a sort of motif. It was totally creepy. Now the song has a sort of creepy-awesome connotation in my mind, and so I like that complexity. (Don’t worry, I am fully aware of how weird I am.)
2. My mom sings hymns every week with residents at a local Detroit nursing home and this is one they sing together. I love to hear the old folks singing this song. No matter where I am, they seem to be singing, I can get to the garden with Him. From an inner city Detroit nursing home, that shit is inspirational if nothing else is.
Recommended Listening: “My Mother’s Hymn Book” ~ Johnny Cash
I have decided, at least this summer, to be a genre-by-month artist. I did Poetry Month in April and was so happy to see thirty new poems at the end of it that I’m going to try to be productive like that always–by tackling a creative project one month at a time.
May is Revise the Novel Month (as you know). Now the novel’s in the hands of some trusted readers. I do plan on thinking about it during the month of June, maybe doing some free-writes associated with my protagonists, but I decided that I would dedicate June to songwriting.
I have come up with a Thirty-Day curriculum that’s pretty ambitious. I’m thinking it will require that I set aside at least an hour a day for playing my guitar and then some. I have geared up for this by playing five songs a day—you know, for the calluses.
Each day this month has a songwriting assignment. Some of them are to learn songs that already exist. Some of them are to write songs in different styles. My hope is that I’ll be able to get through a song without stopping (rather than say, nail it). I’d like to learn a bunch of songs that I can have in my repertoire for later nailing.
I will post the assignment on my blog and perhaps, if I have time, I’ll also post a link to a song that holds some significance in my life—not sure if it will be related to the assignment.
I will, if all goes well, come out of June knowing how to play thirty more songs than I did when I started. Ten of these songs I will have written and twenty of them are from other artists.
I invite anyone who wants to write songs to participate in that aspect. Lots of the assignments are lyric-driven. I’m a writer, remember? I think about the words first.
I also invite you to share songs and musicians with me. I want to know what you’re listening to. I want to know why—the significance of this music in your lives.
I don’t know if anyone will join me on this semi-crazy endeavor but if you feel compelled to do so, please do.
I can’t even tell you how excited I am for this.
(I’m also expecting this month to feel a bit like Cash in this song:)
TODAY’S PROMPT: Learn a song usually sung by someone who is not like you.
Nora Bonner 