I’ve been stopped up for writing, lately. I wrote a song about three months ago, but that’s been it. Not even something to work on since. I can’t, and shouldn’t, be writing about myself right now. So I needed someone to start feeding me ideas … and then I needed what the journalist in me needs … a deadline.
So, I decided to mimic something rob and I took part in in Providence at AS220, run by the phenomenal Ryan Fitzsimmons. A songwriter event where, every month, the audience writes ideas and images on slips of paper, they draw a few and the audience chooses what the participating songwriters will write about for next month’s event. It’s how rob wrote Rob’s Lament, based on the idea “confined spaces.”
Last night at the open mic we host, I did this. The three drawn were:
– dreams drip dry: do you miss them?
– Sandstorm Love Affair
– the unique quality of Pee Wee’s playhouse
The audience overwhelmingly voted for sandstorm love affair , which turned out to be the idea of Ashraf (though a contingent of two spirited girls, Amy and Kat, were all about Pee Wee).
What’s cooler … is 13 artists signed on to participate, including Ashraf, Michael Berkowitz, Rob, myself, Rick Millman … as well as three poets, a drummer who’s never played anything but drums at the open mic but says has a song up his sleeve, and a Native American floutist, Zachar, who came to the open mic last night for the first time.
I woke up this morning with my idea, and it’s a good one. I wanted to depart from the obvious intent that Ashraf, being from the Sudan, had in mind. So I’m going dust-bowl-era American farming couple rekindling a failing marriage during a literal (and more metaphorical) drought, when a dust storm forces them alone into the shelter for hours.
I’ve got a chorus, and I know how I need to set things up in the verses. I have a month to make it perfect.
Hell … I must be a songwriter after all. Just forgot how for a little while.
I was surprised something came to me this quickly, but I knew this was the sort of thing I needed to get going. I’m a craft songwriter … and right now it just happens that I need someone else’s story to tell.
In case you are curious, as I was, here are the other ideas submitted, which will all be put back into the bucket (along with Pee Wee and Drip Dry) after we play our sandstorm songs Aug. 7 and draw for a new round of songs for the first week in September. I didn’t submit an idea this time around because … well, the whole point was I was in need of one:
– Wanting something or someone you know you could never have
– disgruntled postal worker
– Finding that sweet spot
– The distance between emotion and memories or … fried chicken
– SOUP
– Broken chair legs
– I’ll play the Libra to your Scorpio as long as you hurt me right
– Electronic love
– Cellophane people: all wrapped up in themselves
– Memories from a past life
– Growing up/changing situations
– Coming around full circle
– Internationality and/or summer?
– Geometric Shapes
– Making sacred spaces out of ordinary places
– Substitute teachers
– Disappearing friends
If anyone cares, I’ll post my process for your perusal in another journal entry later tonight or tomorrow.
Happy 4th.
