hey how’s it goin? the newsletter

A Tell You What! Studios Newsletter

Welcome to issue no. 10 of “hey how’s it goin’?”
Podcast news, music related recommendations, and the scribblings of a mixed up music nerd.

Episode 55: Willy Tea Taylor, songwriter, musician, storyteller deluxe took over Tell You What! Studios for 24 hours recently, and it was a total blast.

Willy sat down with me in the afternoon for a highly entertaining conversation that meandered through his fascinating life: stories of barstool wisdom, taxidermy, heroic doses of LSD, composing songs on his truck steering wheel; we covered it all and then some. In the evening he played a show here at the studios and won over a room full of folks who are all now Willy’s best friends. He’s that kind of guy.

Check out the new music documentary Immediate Family, about the session musicians from the 1970’s-Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Waddy Wachtel-who made the music happen on many of the iconic albums of that era (Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, CSNY etc etc).

It is a follow-up movie of sorts to the also quite excellent “Wrecking Crew” doc about the session musicians of the 1960’s. Watch both movies for sure, amazing musicians and fascinating musical stories galore.

Here is a related tidbit: The Grass Roots were a band that was put together in the 1960’s as a vehicle for L.A. songwriters PF Sloan and Steve Barry to get their songs out in the world, and the Wrecking Crew musicians recorded the songs in the studio. Among the musicians they brought aboard to play guitar and sing in the band out on the road was none other than Creed Bratton, the enigmatic and hilariously mysterious Quality Assurance Director at Dunder Mifflin Paper Co.

Evidently Creed then made the questionable decision to drop acid before playing a Grass Roots show at the legendary Fillmore West in 1969. Not surprisingly, it did not go very well, and Creed was asked to leave the band.

Here he is telling that tale onstage in 2013.

I find it awesome that the Creed character on The Office was pretty much aligned with his real life back story; if Creed had wandered by Jim’s desk mumbling about getting kicked out of a famous 60’s rock band for dropping acid, it would have been just another amusing Creed aside.

There is a total solar eclipse coming, maybe to a town near you? I was persuaded by the Tell You What! Studios spiritual advisor to attend the last one (she also crafted us these awesome customized shirts for the occassion). We drove down to a southern Illinois campground to catch it.

Here is what I can report: you should go see the one in April.

Very difficult to describe the experience; it was something close to spiritual. For sure there was cool science nerdy stuff as things got under way, with the weird shadows, animals acting strange.

But the actual brief period of totality-whoa.

It was wonderfully intense in a way that was without real comparison, a singular experience for sure.

What does this have to do with music? I don’t know, but I did write a song while we were waiting for the eclipse that remains one of my favorites; nothing to do with the sun (I don’t think?) but there was inspiration in the air I guess.

We are headed to Ohio to watch this one; write another hit.

See you there.

“Lyrics first or music first?”

This is often asked of songwriters-how exactly do their songs come together? I don’t ask this question directly when I talk with musicians on the podcast, but we usually get there eventually.

And the answer to the lyrics or music first question is usually some version of “both/neither/it depends/I don’t really know”.

A common type of response is that ideas come, sometimes as words, sometimes as bits of melody, sometimes when noodling chord progressions on the guitar or piano, sometimes the bits of melody or chords come with bits of lyrics attached. And then the ideas build out from these little snippets. More lyrics come when the musical idea is fleshed out. Different melodies are tried on for size for what seems like the chorus parts.

Different songwriters will have particular ways the ideas come to flower, but they still say that it is different for different songs.

Part of the glorious mystery of the creative process.

There are exceptions, artists who seem to have a specific words/music approach, and I find these interesting to consider.

Here are a few famous examples:

R.E.M.-one of my favorite bands. I was quite obsessed with their first few records (Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning) as a young man. The lyrics floating in and out and around the swirls of guitar and bass lines, creating vivid yet vague images, like waking from a dream:

There's a secret stigma, reaping wheel
Diminish, a carnival of sorts
Chronic town, poster torn, reaping wheel
Stranger, stranger to these parts

Gentlemen don't get caught
Cages under cage
Gentlemen don't get caught
Boxcars (are pulling) out of town
-R.E.M., Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)

Over time I think the band’s approach to making music evolved and took various forms, but for these first recordings Michael Stipe listened to music his bandmates created, and went off and wrote his poetic, wandering, evocative words atop what he heard, paying as much attention to the sounds of the words themselves as he did to their messages.

The National-another of my favorites, and it comes as no surprise that they admit to a heavy R.E.M. influence.

Again, another music-first approach to song creation: guitarists (and brothers) Aaron and Bryce Dessner provide lyricist/lead singer Matt Berninger with musical sketches they have worked up, and Berninger writes lyrics over them; eventually bringing in the rhythm section Scott and Bryan Devendorf (again with the brothers!) to complete the songs.

What I think attracts me to both bands (this applies more to the early R.E.M. music than their later work) is the way the lyrics are starkly suggestive of ideas-there are specific images, but often just fragments-that allow me to create my own story.

I rarely find myself wondering what the song is actually meant to be about, what point is trying to be made by the band, as I do with other artists I enjoy. (In fact with those early R.E.M. records it is not always clear what some of the mumbled lyrics actually are.)

The song just takes my brain on a ride partially of my own making, using the wonderfully poetic lyrics and rich sonics of the music as both the vehicles and the signposts of the journey.

Check out The National’s excellent Bloodbuzz Ohio-the propulsive music suggested the lyrical themes that Berninger placed atop them; I still don’t know what the song is “about’ but I see stories in my mind every time I listen.

The songs work for me this way, I think, specifically because of the way they were put together: the lyricist being inspired or moved by what he was hearing in the musical ideas; trying to put into words the mystery of those musical feelings.

We, the listener, then take those lyrical ideas and musical themes on our own mysterious ride.

OK let’s turn this on its head:

How about Squeeze-another excellent band, their albums are stacked with gem after gem of brilliant power pop songs, brimming with musical hooks and deft wordplay.

The songwriters and essential members of Squeeze over the decades, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, work as a team: Difford writes up lyrics, hands them over to Tilbrook, and he creates the music.

Sounds simple enough, but when you actually listen to some of these songs, what Tilbrook has done is remarkable: he takes very wordy lyrics, which contain great rhymes, witty references, catchy turns of phrase, and lays them into complicated musical structures that seems tailor made.

This is not some simple moon/June poetry looking for a basic chord progression.

Check out Pulling Muscles from a Shell- words and phrases are sometimes stretched out, sometimes the words come in a jumble, the pace of different sections picks up and tails off, but it all works, and Tilbrook does all of this as he shoehorns Difford’s lines onto his musical ideas.

As a (very) amateur songwriter, I have a difficult time seeing how someone could take someone else’s tangle of words like this and allow my musical brain to find them the perfect instrumental home.

Speaking of musical brains, now we can mention perhaps the modern masters of the lyrics first category, Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

Taupin sits at his ranch in California and writes poems about what he finds interesting (often cowboys), and brings them to Elton, printed, in a folder. Elton John takes the folder, sits at a piano, and starts to play as he scans through the lyrics. According to Taupin, sometimes he begins playing music without even finishing reading the entire lyric.

Taupin claims that Elton has written several songs in one day in this fashion. Now let’s remember what songs we are talking about here: some of the greatest rock songs ever created. Benny and the Jets, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Rocket Man.

This is amazing?

Lyrics first or music first?

Yes!

Thanks for reading this issue of hey how’s it goin? the newsletter. I encourage you to forward this along to anyone who might find it interesting. Was this forwarded to you? You can subscribe here.

Check out our spotify playlist Pork Chop Happy Hour, updated frequently with new music I come across that catches my attention.

Please drop me an email (just hit “reply”) with any thoughts, ideas, questions, complaints (not really). If you dare to include a mailing address, I will send along a fabulous Tell You What! sticker or two, no questions asked. Postcards always welcome (and encouraged as creative acts) at our address below.

music is the best!

Mike

Look in the paper, don’t blame me if the guy’s a nut.