For me, the best song I ever wrote/recorded was a song titled "I'm tired of this". I was in a bad relationship and was just plain tired of being in it. I grabbed a bottle of Jack, went into my soundproof basement studio, picked up my real love (black Strat), warmed up my Marshall half stack, turned on the 8 track recorder, with my eyes fulling up with tears recorded my best song ever. I never ever played that song live cause I could never capture that emotion again. Fact is I could never figure out what I had done on guitar. Thank God I recorded it.

Anger. It does a song good.

I just got into a huge fight with my soon-to-be ex-wife. The lyrics, oh, they flowed. I won't re-print them here due to the excessive profanity. I wrote the song 15 years ago now, but it's still one of those songs that people still remember.

Maybe its an old wives tale, but I do tend to write better when I'm down, depressed, sad...maybe when I'm in a good relationship I'm thinkin more about the booty...lol!

I'm always come from a different place when I'm creating something--thinking: "o.k. that's a cool lick" or "I like the way the words flow here.."

And then I record it and listen to it a few times

But something funny happens when I pick up a tune and listen to it after giving it a break for awhile: It's like: "Oh Snap!!!"

And its at that moment that I realize that I'm (once again) my own doctor in my chair listening to myself on the couch...

One other wierd thing is that sometimes something just pops into my head and I put it down as quickly as possible and then a few weeks later, I find myself living out the lyrical content in the song(s)..

Strange, eh?




Jshua

theSpark said:

Yes, it's true! My album was on the backburner and now that I'm single again it's all coming back!

otan said:

correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this song on your Headquake demo?

any deep emotion usually kicks out a good song. mostly when I'm down.

Belong was written in a state of openness... The story is on my soundclick page: http://www.soundclick.com...gid=726120

I read the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and one of the things she mentions in the book is the importance of "Just showing up". Weather or not something happens, you just have to visit your creative workstation. One night, around midnight I sat at the Korg and said "ok, give me a song." I wanted to write a song about the creative process and the awakening I was feeling because of the book. I wrote the words as fast as they came to me.
Immediately I came up with the melody for the lyrics and I knew that the middle was going to be faster than the first two verses. The bass line and the chords came next, then the drums, very sparse, but I think it works with the song... Piano came soon after and the flute part was done a week later. So everything was done by 4am. My most magical musical creating moment. The song is all about letting go and giving yourself up to the creative force. "I no longer belong to me." Its like enjoying the chase of love. "Don't give in, but don't leave. I live for your grace and dream for your disease. Call me crazy, but call me, please"

[Edited 2/2/05 18:39pm]

otan said:

Sounds like Living Colour.

Scared, realizing that death could have been close for me at one point

Its weird seeing someone die almost in front of u, and almost have a tragady close to theirs, but being a live to realize what it could have done.

The first time I ever made a song was about my ex boyfriend a song called "Am I Right" an instrumental with a FUNKY as beat followed by high use of vocal samples and guitar licks. I was flushin my ex boyfriend out in the song and it was such a relief...then turned out to be in my opinion one of my best trax.