Rock and Roll Stories #65 - The joy of writing a new song

I once heard an interview with Paul McCartney where he said he didn't write songs, they always existed in the ether and he just tuned into the vibrations and wrote them down. He also said that the best songs are ones that it only took him five minutes to write. He said when he had to agonise over them, they always ended up as album tracks, B sides or just discarded. Another interesting thing about the Beatles is that when McCartney and Lennon first got together as The Quarrymen, they wrote and performed dozens of songs, none of which made it into the Beatles reportoire. I'm not  Beatles fan, but I recognise McCartney as possibly the greatest pop songwriter of all. There are plenty of other great songwriters who could take the crown, Burt Bacharach, Don Black and Ailee Willis would make a good shout, but for me, McCartney has such a range and body of material that he would take the crown.

Whenever I advise a young artist on how to write and structure songs and melodies, I start with the work of McCartney. The man wrote Helter Skelter, Live and Let Die, Hey Jude and Let it Be. You can probably learn everything you need to know about writing modern pop songs from those four. That doesn't mean I think they are the greatest song ever written. Depending on my mood that would be 5446 is my number by Toots and The Maytells, Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell (written by Jimmy Webb), London Caalling by The Clash or I'm stuck in a pagoda with Trisha Toyota by The Dickies. But Macca has such a body of work that you can't argue with him. His songs are covered by all manner of artists, who often bring a whole new slant to the songs, which to me, is the sign of a good song. 

Now I can only aspire to write a song that would be compared to the list above. Whilst I think McCartney is the best, I would say that my favourite is Ian Dury. Dury is a huge influence on my music, it is no secret. Unlike the work of McCartney, the work of Ian Dury is hard to cover, as it is so personalised. Dury writes about the world around him and the experiences he's seen. He is naughty, vulgar and rude at times, in a way no one else can really get away with. But he is also sweet tender and funny. I met the great man, once, in a cafe in  Camden in 1977-8 ( I don't  recall the date). He was spikey and difficult when I approached him for some advice on getting a band together. Just as I was about to leave, with a flea in my ear, he relented and was kind and gave me some sound advice. He said "If you can sing like Marvin Gaye, you can do anything you like. If you sing like me, you have to be the biggest version of yourself you can be and not worry about it".

I didn't understand what Ian meant when I started writing songs. I wrote songs that were highly political, written by someone with no life experience. When that didn't work, I wrote songs that I tried to make dark and meaningful.. That didn't work either. Then the penny dropped. When I wrote songs that documented what I saw in the streets, pubs, football stadiums and at family gatherings, it clicked. When I started presenting songs to the band and they all smiled, laughed and fed off the energy, I realised that this was what was needed. Over the years, my musical ability, understanding of melody and structure has improved and i can do more technically intersting things than I could when we started. In 1985, I did a songwriting course, that was priceless, it still took a while for the penny to fully drop but, the quality of my writing has continually improvred ever since. 

So how do I write songs? When I started, I'd find a chord structure that worked and come up with a load of lyrics to fit over the top. We'd then thrash it out at rehearsal. We got a few songs that were Ok and a couple that were pretty good, but that was about it. Now, I do it in a completely different way. I often do this walking to work. I come up with an idea, a catchy phrase, and just dictate these into my mobile phone. I then whistle the melody, trumpet line, and any other relevent info is captured. When I have a free minute, I listen and play around with the ideas. I then try and get a chord structure that fits the song and reflects the lyrics. This tends to mean that the music style fits the lyrics far better than trying to bolt lyrics onto a riff. I then present the basic idea to the band.

My latest song was written last week. It is called Naughty Naughty and is very much in the Ian Dury line of songwriting. It has a quirky chord structure, a catchy trumpet line and a chorus that is extremely catchy. AS often happens, when the songs is first presented, it gets radically changed when the band get involved. I had intended myself to sing it, but it actually worked better with me singing the verses, Tom singing the choruses and all of us joining in for the last line of the chorus. 

One of the things I learned from Ian Dury's is that you have to make even the most irredeemable characters sympathetic and human. It is interesting because when I wrote the song initially, I realised that I hadn't done this. I thought about the character and realised that there was an aspect that I hadn't fully appreciated, and that became a constituent of the chorus. The song is largely about inappropriate behaviour, but I've learned over the last few years that many people see huge changes in their personality as a result of prescription drugs. A friend of mine had a parent locked up for their own good, after they had a sudden, inexplicable personality change about fifteen years ago. I knew the person and it was shocking and difficult. Last year, I read that some prescription drugs can cause such behaviour, in people who had previously been pillars of the parish. I think it is important to use any platform we have to get such messages out, but it has to be done subtly in a non preachy way.

To me, writing a song is like baking a cake. You take many ingredients, but they have to be in balance. All of the songs I've mentioned above have all the ingredients. Good lyrics, great structure, strong melodies, catchy hook lines and they all take you somewhere else. If I listen to Wichita Lineman, I am up a telegraph pole on the plains of the USA, daydreaming of cute lady with pale blue eyes. If I hear London Calling, I am having a bacon sarnie in a dodgy cafe in Hammersmith in 1979 in the pouring rain.  Will Naughty Naughty do that when we record it? Will it transport the listener back to 1976 and doing a paper round in the rain? Only time will tell. It is probably the most controversial song I've written, but as it's a boppy ska song, that may be missed. We shall see. All I can say at the moment is that I am delighted with it and I look forward to performing it on Friday at Nambucca, Please come along. Tickets can be procured here - https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/London/Nambucca/The-Silencerz-vs-The-False-Dots--DJ-Rebska/42323301