Re: Slow Revelations
That's a really interesting question, and one that opens lots of others. For me, it addresses two main concepts;
The first being the power of a spoken thought. A good song, or story, or screenplay, or myth has the structural character of a bullet, designed specifically to pierce through matter. Central to the design of that bullet is the Word, or the Phrase That Pays. There's something very primitive and propagandistic about the whole notion.
People have always recognised the power of words; be they prayer, or Talmudic or Hashishin or Templar secrets, or Crowleyan rites, or the Secret Names of the Druids, or the Latin recitations of a priest, or the repetitious phrase-mongering of a modern political campaign, or just a kid howling for sexual gratification (which after all is what most of pop music is about), but rarely do songwriters think of such things, which I think is a mistake, given the form that we work in.
In the last thirty years or so, the idea of affirmations has become very popular, but few have noticed that Pop songs are essentially affirmations, burnished and honed and delivered like missiles or artillery shells, or post-hypnotic suggestions. There has always been the idea (now shared by some extremist physicists) that a thought has its own energy, which can be increased with repetition of that thought.
I've seen lots of examples of that, of the Word becoming transformed to "reality", however mundane the word or the reality may be. I suspect Fred Durst is finding quite a bit of "Nookie" these days. (On that thought, maybe I should write a song called I'm Happy, In Love, and I'm a MultiMillionaire)
Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Robert Anton Wilson have all written quite a bit about this kind of thing with a lot more historical background and erudition than I'll ever have, and if you're curious about this kind of thing, I'd check em out, if you havent already done so.
The second is the "speaking in tongues" concept, whereby a particular switch in the mind is turned, releasing a river of
subconscious imagery and vocalisations.
I see people do that all the time, particularly when writing lyrics "to track", ie singing wordlessly along with a track to find lyric, phrasing, and melodic ideas. As it relates to writing, or songwriting, a trance state can release your subconscious to an extent, and when you read what you've written, it can offer you some insight into your more primordial perceptions.
An example of that for me came early, when as a fresh-faced and dimwitted young man of 24, I wrote the song "Heroes", depicting in grim detail the last days of David and David, (the telegraph man pulling out all the wires, etc...) just as we started our little adventure, and now, 15 years later, my actual, cautious but optimistic state of mind.
Whether that's a product of "the Will of The Word", or merely my subconscious making an essentially accurate speculative prediction regarding my future is quite simply unknown. It's probably a combination of the two.
So I guess the answer is yes, I find that sometimes songs can
emerge in a fog, only to be clarified and revealed by a later incident or mental state, and that sometimes they can actually cause a physical reaction in the "real" world.
Re: Sheryl,
I suppose that does sort of need to be addressed, although so much wind has been wasted on the topic that it seems sort of redundant. In a way, it refers to the above, in that another aspect of creative work relates to Intent. There's a samurai saying "Don't draw your sword until your heart is pure".
For the most part, nobody involved in that project's heart was pure throughout the making of that album, with the exception maybe of Bill Bottrell.
I was operating from a state of cold, demonic rage, Kevin was flailing helplessly at his own demons, Brian was wrestling with the deaths of his parents, Sheryl was operating from a kind of Last Stand desperation, Dan was reliving the Holocaust, (his parents were survivors) and we were all betraying the original concept of The Tuesday Night Music Club, which was originally intended as a vacation from the popsong/hierarchical/frontman/backup/corporate-funded band/brand-name thing. Oh well.
For me, the corruption inherent in the whole thing revealed itself in blinding detail shortly after John O'Brien killed himself. The day after his funeral I was driving somewhere when I heard Sheryl on the radio say "Hi, I'm Sheryl Crow, and I wont be leaving Las Vegas until you come here, to Harrah's" (or some such place), and the savage irony of it all just hit me like a brick. All was lost, but the money. All our rebellious concepts, ideals, etc... And turned into what seemed at the time to me a particularly insidious bumper sticker for CorpoAmerica, made even more malevolent and powerful by how it coopted our original idealistic concepts.
I wrote a probably ill-considered article for a local alternative weekly on the topic at the behest of one of the editors, a friend of mine, shortly after that. I intended it as a tribute to my passionate and dead friend, but somehow that didnt communicate itself, and it was read more as an attack on Sheryl than anything else. That article is often referred to by critics and such, but I suspect never actually read by them, judging from the liberties that are taken with the text of my statements, and what I think is my clear intent.
No, I don't think and never did think that Sheryl was responsible for John's death, but the song Leaving Las Vegas and the questions about its true parenthood did accompany John to his grave with the belief that I'd personally betrayed him and our long friendship.
Then Kevin Gilbert's sudden death, and finally William Bottrell Jr.s death at age 7 left me personally (and I suspect everyone else involved) in a vortex of depression, shame, grief, and forced questions about my own karma, and what kind of a crazy world do we live in, really, and what in the hell are we supposed to do about it?
I don't know, somebody could probably write a book about the whole sad affair, but I honestly can't even really bear to think about it anymore. Part of me likes to pretend that the David Baerwald that was involved in that project was a fictional character, sharing only a name with the man I see while shaving.
Re: Women
I dont know why there arent more women writing in, or why no one has noticed just how damn sexy I am. Cause I am. Really.
Sexy as all hell, so tell a friend.
Yrs,
David Baerwald
Revelations, Sheryl, Women
B
Baerwald
(view)
Re: Slow Revelations
That's a really interesting question, and one that opens lots of others. For me, it addresses two main concepts;
The first being the power of a spoken thought. A good song, or story, or screenplay, or myth has the structural character of a bullet, designed specifically to pierce through matter. Central to the design of that bullet is the Word, or the Phrase That Pays. There's something very primitive and propagandistic about the whole notion.
People have always recognised the power of words; be they prayer, or Talmudic or Hashishin or Templar secrets, or Crowleyan rites, or the Secret Names of the Druids, or the Latin recitations of a priest, or the repetitious phrase-mongering of a modern political campaign, or just a kid howling for sexual gratification (which after all is what most of pop music is about), but rarely do songwriters think of such things, which I think is a mistake, given the form that we work in.
In the last thirty years or so, the idea of affirmations has become very popular, but few have noticed that Pop songs are essentially affirmations, burnished and honed and delivered like missiles or artillery shells, or post-hypnotic suggestions. There has always been the idea (now shared by some extremist physicists) that a thought has its own energy, which can be increased with repetition of that thought.
I've seen lots of examples of that, of the Word becoming transformed to "reality", however mundane the word or the reality may be. I suspect Fred Durst is finding quite a bit of "Nookie" these days. (On that thought, maybe I should write a song called I'm Happy, In Love, and I'm a MultiMillionaire)
Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Robert Anton Wilson have all written quite a bit about this kind of thing with a lot more historical background and erudition than I'll ever have, and if you're curious about this kind of thing, I'd check em out, if you havent already done so.
The second is the "speaking in tongues" concept, whereby a particular switch in the mind is turned, releasing a river of
subconscious imagery and vocalisations.
I see people do that all the time, particularly when writing lyrics "to track", ie singing wordlessly along with a track to find lyric, phrasing, and melodic ideas. As it relates to writing, or songwriting, a trance state can release your subconscious to an extent, and when you read what you've written, it can offer you some insight into your more primordial perceptions.
An example of that for me came early, when as a fresh-faced and dimwitted young man of 24, I wrote the song "Heroes", depicting in grim detail the last days of David and David, (the telegraph man pulling out all the wires, etc...) just as we started our little adventure, and now, 15 years later, my actual, cautious but optimistic state of mind.
Whether that's a product of "the Will of The Word", or merely my subconscious making an essentially accurate speculative prediction regarding my future is quite simply unknown. It's probably a combination of the two.
So I guess the answer is yes, I find that sometimes songs can
emerge in a fog, only to be clarified and revealed by a later incident or mental state, and that sometimes they can actually cause a physical reaction in the "real" world.
Re: Sheryl,
I suppose that does sort of need to be addressed, although so much wind has been wasted on the topic that it seems sort of redundant. In a way, it refers to the above, in that another aspect of creative work relates to Intent. There's a samurai saying "Don't draw your sword until your heart is pure".
For the most part, nobody involved in that project's heart was pure throughout the making of that album, with the exception maybe of Bill Bottrell.
I was operating from a state of cold, demonic rage, Kevin was flailing helplessly at his own demons, Brian was wrestling with the deaths of his parents, Sheryl was operating from a kind of Last Stand desperation, Dan was reliving the Holocaust, (his parents were survivors) and we were all betraying the original concept of The Tuesday Night Music Club, which was originally intended as a vacation from the popsong/hierarchical/frontman/backup/corporate-funded band/brand-name thing. Oh well.
For me, the corruption inherent in the whole thing revealed itself in blinding detail shortly after John O'Brien killed himself. The day after his funeral I was driving somewhere when I heard Sheryl on the radio say "Hi, I'm Sheryl Crow, and I wont be leaving Las Vegas until you come here, to Harrah's" (or some such place), and the savage irony of it all just hit me like a brick. All was lost, but the money. All our rebellious concepts, ideals, etc... And turned into what seemed at the time to me a particularly insidious bumper sticker for CorpoAmerica, made even more malevolent and powerful by how it coopted our original idealistic concepts.
I wrote a probably ill-considered article for a local alternative weekly on the topic at the behest of one of the editors, a friend of mine, shortly after that. I intended it as a tribute to my passionate and dead friend, but somehow that didnt communicate itself, and it was read more as an attack on Sheryl than anything else. That article is often referred to by critics and such, but I suspect never actually read by them, judging from the liberties that are taken with the text of my statements, and what I think is my clear intent.
No, I don't think and never did think that Sheryl was responsible for John's death, but the song Leaving Las Vegas and the questions about its true parenthood did accompany John to his grave with the belief that I'd personally betrayed him and our long friendship.
Then Kevin Gilbert's sudden death, and finally William Bottrell Jr.s death at age 7 left me personally (and I suspect everyone else involved) in a vortex of depression, shame, grief, and forced questions about my own karma, and what kind of a crazy world do we live in, really, and what in the hell are we supposed to do about it?
I don't know, somebody could probably write a book about the whole sad affair, but I honestly can't even really bear to think about it anymore. Part of me likes to pretend that the David Baerwald that was involved in that project was a fictional character, sharing only a name with the man I see while shaving.
Re: Women
I dont know why there arent more women writing in, or why no one has noticed just how damn sexy I am. Cause I am. Really.
Sexy as all hell, so tell a friend.
Yrs,
David Baerwald
That's a really interesting question, and one that opens lots of others. For me, it addresses two main concepts;
The first being the power of a spoken thought. A good song, or story, or screenplay, or myth has the structural character of a bullet, designed specifically to pierce through matter. Central to the design of that bullet is the Word, or the Phrase That Pays. There's something very primitive and propagandistic about the whole notion.
People have always recognised the power of words; be they prayer, or Talmudic or Hashishin or Templar secrets, or Crowleyan rites, or the Secret Names of the Druids, or the Latin recitations of a priest, or the repetitious phrase-mongering of a modern political campaign, or just a kid howling for sexual gratification (which after all is what most of pop music is about), but rarely do songwriters think of such things, which I think is a mistake, given the form that we work in.
In the last thirty years or so, the idea of affirmations has become very popular, but few have noticed that Pop songs are essentially affirmations, burnished and honed and delivered like missiles or artillery shells, or post-hypnotic suggestions. There has always been the idea (now shared by some extremist physicists) that a thought has its own energy, which can be increased with repetition of that thought.
I've seen lots of examples of that, of the Word becoming transformed to "reality", however mundane the word or the reality may be. I suspect Fred Durst is finding quite a bit of "Nookie" these days. (On that thought, maybe I should write a song called I'm Happy, In Love, and I'm a MultiMillionaire)
Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Robert Anton Wilson have all written quite a bit about this kind of thing with a lot more historical background and erudition than I'll ever have, and if you're curious about this kind of thing, I'd check em out, if you havent already done so.
The second is the "speaking in tongues" concept, whereby a particular switch in the mind is turned, releasing a river of
subconscious imagery and vocalisations.
I see people do that all the time, particularly when writing lyrics "to track", ie singing wordlessly along with a track to find lyric, phrasing, and melodic ideas. As it relates to writing, or songwriting, a trance state can release your subconscious to an extent, and when you read what you've written, it can offer you some insight into your more primordial perceptions.
An example of that for me came early, when as a fresh-faced and dimwitted young man of 24, I wrote the song "Heroes", depicting in grim detail the last days of David and David, (the telegraph man pulling out all the wires, etc...) just as we started our little adventure, and now, 15 years later, my actual, cautious but optimistic state of mind.
Whether that's a product of "the Will of The Word", or merely my subconscious making an essentially accurate speculative prediction regarding my future is quite simply unknown. It's probably a combination of the two.
So I guess the answer is yes, I find that sometimes songs can
emerge in a fog, only to be clarified and revealed by a later incident or mental state, and that sometimes they can actually cause a physical reaction in the "real" world.
Re: Sheryl,
I suppose that does sort of need to be addressed, although so much wind has been wasted on the topic that it seems sort of redundant. In a way, it refers to the above, in that another aspect of creative work relates to Intent. There's a samurai saying "Don't draw your sword until your heart is pure".
For the most part, nobody involved in that project's heart was pure throughout the making of that album, with the exception maybe of Bill Bottrell.
I was operating from a state of cold, demonic rage, Kevin was flailing helplessly at his own demons, Brian was wrestling with the deaths of his parents, Sheryl was operating from a kind of Last Stand desperation, Dan was reliving the Holocaust, (his parents were survivors) and we were all betraying the original concept of The Tuesday Night Music Club, which was originally intended as a vacation from the popsong/hierarchical/frontman/backup/corporate-funded band/brand-name thing. Oh well.
For me, the corruption inherent in the whole thing revealed itself in blinding detail shortly after John O'Brien killed himself. The day after his funeral I was driving somewhere when I heard Sheryl on the radio say "Hi, I'm Sheryl Crow, and I wont be leaving Las Vegas until you come here, to Harrah's" (or some such place), and the savage irony of it all just hit me like a brick. All was lost, but the money. All our rebellious concepts, ideals, etc... And turned into what seemed at the time to me a particularly insidious bumper sticker for CorpoAmerica, made even more malevolent and powerful by how it coopted our original idealistic concepts.
I wrote a probably ill-considered article for a local alternative weekly on the topic at the behest of one of the editors, a friend of mine, shortly after that. I intended it as a tribute to my passionate and dead friend, but somehow that didnt communicate itself, and it was read more as an attack on Sheryl than anything else. That article is often referred to by critics and such, but I suspect never actually read by them, judging from the liberties that are taken with the text of my statements, and what I think is my clear intent.
No, I don't think and never did think that Sheryl was responsible for John's death, but the song Leaving Las Vegas and the questions about its true parenthood did accompany John to his grave with the belief that I'd personally betrayed him and our long friendship.
Then Kevin Gilbert's sudden death, and finally William Bottrell Jr.s death at age 7 left me personally (and I suspect everyone else involved) in a vortex of depression, shame, grief, and forced questions about my own karma, and what kind of a crazy world do we live in, really, and what in the hell are we supposed to do about it?
I don't know, somebody could probably write a book about the whole sad affair, but I honestly can't even really bear to think about it anymore. Part of me likes to pretend that the David Baerwald that was involved in that project was a fictional character, sharing only a name with the man I see while shaving.
Re: Women
I dont know why there arent more women writing in, or why no one has noticed just how damn sexy I am. Cause I am. Really.
Sexy as all hell, so tell a friend.
Yrs,
David Baerwald
