Track 6: New Song! New Release: Songwriter's Block
What to sing when you can't write anything new to sing.
The oldest trick in the book for writers who can’t write is to write about not writing.
That’s what I did in Nov-Dec 2020 in order to survive a severe case of writer’s block brought about by the Pandemic, the drought, wildfire smoke, and that songwriter’s real dread when you’re only half done with a new LP and there’s nothing good coming out. You sit and worry and write these terrible scraps of songs and lyrics that have no structure. That LP completion schedule in your mind starts to slip away. Scroll down to track 6:
Not only was I not writing but after weeks of smoke from the Napa wildfires my voice was shattered. It was the wrong key for me and my throat and vocal cords were inflamed. Chana came to the rescue and sang right along with me, a common assignment for her to help smooth out my crackling voice. We Zoom’d together for a session or two and I gave her an assignment to help with the Outro and she really sparkled. She was dueting with Jon’s calypso acoustic guitar leads and then she helped establish the triple false ending. Mikaela sang her part months later in 2021, just as Jon was finishing the LP tracks. It was tricky getting it to sound like we were all together wrote Jon in one of his emails:
“Sure, I'll go over it again. I did mix her intentionally like that. She's essentially panned in the center with you (+20 and -20) whereas Chana is panned wide, which is why her tracks stick out more. I had her panned more to the side and with a higher level but it was making the track sound messy. The syllables were all landing at different times. With it mixed like this you get a full chord with your three voices and it all flows together.” email from Jon Ireson
This song is actually complicated in structure and storyline. It has four distinct sections: 1. Can’t Write; 2. Advice Given; 3. Advice Observed; 4. Writing Again. The whole thing is a song about itself: if you can’t write verse to a melody, use vowels. Ooooh, oooooh is often more effective than “Baby, baby” and the great vocalists of the day (not me) can do wonders with a whole set of vowels. Chana does it all the time. Jon mixed her and Mikala perfectly.
The bridge holds the song together given the simplistic vowels-as-lyrics structure and the inter-stanza rhyming (raindrops/rooftops) cements the two bridges together not to mention Mikaela’s crisp-high range. The bridge is the voice of ‘songwriters of history’, or the muse, giving advice: use more vowels, forget the words! Finally, stanza four is almost all vowels. It’s happy not frustrated and the multiple outros reinforce the songwriter is writing again, so much so, that the song doesn’t stop, not once, not twice, but three times.
It’s a very complicated quirky song, self-referential and verging on a Pop style, completely different from the funky junkyard blues scattered in the LP. Using vowels as lyrics only works in music not prose or poetry. I’m sure Chana and Mikaela could do this whole song using just a, e, i, o and u sounds.
Jon Ireson, Producer, says: “Songwriter's Block came over from Patrick with that samba rhythm and the trio's vocals. Adding the Caribbean calypso electric piano was what really tied it together for me. Then I came up with a playful bass part and an acoustic guitar solo that kind of danced with the vocalists.”
By the way, this song was never released as a single and is one of three brand new songs on The Virtualistics: Help People Up, Great Bunch of Molecules, and Songwriter’s Block.
Songwriter's Block
©2021 by Patrick Ames. All Rights Reserved.
1. <Can't Write>
a, e, i , o
a, e, i , o and u
a, e, i , o
a, e, i , o and u
You can't write / never will again
no more music / you're near exhaustion
2. <Advice Given>
a, e, i , o
a, e, i , o and u
a, e, i , o
a, e, i , o and u
Don't you know that / vowels are free
Fatten with vowels and / lines come easy
Bridge: <Advice Observed>
All these vowels / are spoken sounds
Falling like raindrops
Use more vowels / and your thoughts will speak.
All these vowels / smart as owls
High up on rooftops
use more vowels / and your songs will sing
3. < Advice Taken: Writing Again!>
a, e, i , o
a, e, i , o and u
a, e, i , o
a, e, i , o and u
a, e, i, o
a, e, i , o and u
a, e, i , o, u, I love you.