WRITING A SONG TO MEET THE MOMENT

by Boy Golden

I wake up to the radio.

Usually, to music, selected for me by someone else, far away. Yesterday, I woke up to a song about getting rich. It was straightforwardly about wanting to be rich; about not wanting to “lift a finger,” about Gucci, Prada, and money. In my first wakeful moments, it seemed completely without irony.

Lying in bed, I listened for a while, and the song grated on my nerves until I turned it off. I rose to meet the day with a bad taste in my mouth. I felt betrayed by this song. I felt the song fell short of the moment we are living in.

For me, writing songs is a precious and sacred practice. Other people’s songs are also precious and sacred and I am loath to participate in criticism of other people’s music. But there I was, brooding over my coffee and notebook, thinking about this song that seemed to glorify everything that felt wrong in the world. I understand the impulse, the desire to get rich, of course. We all need money. Money is important. Maybe it doesn’t buy you happiness, but it buys you peace, security, food, shelter, entertainment and status, and that is pretty close to happiness. It seems to me that from the top down, from the highest levels of power, people are trying to get rich. Decisions are being made with the sole aim of enrichment, with the human cost of lives and livelihoods. This is corruption! I bridle. I roll my eyes. I seethe.

Still I wonder: how to write a song that meets the moment?

I have tried many times, and many times failed. The closest I have come, possibly, is my song “Suffer,” which was the first single from my new album, Best of Our Possible Lives.

The central problem with writing a song that addresses the politics, injustices, or moral significance of a moment is ‘message.’

I am sometimes asked if I begin writing a song with a specific message in mind and I always have to reply that whenever I do this, whenever I set out to write a song with a ‘message,’ I am left with a bad song.

I have a preacher inside me that wants to tell the world: “these are the problems, these are the solutions, and this is what you should do about it.” The preacher writes himself in circles and when the rubber meets the road, the song feels hollow and empty even though it is supposed to be full of meaning.

From Ursula Le Guin’s translation of the Tao Te Ching:

Hollowed out,
clay makes a pot.
Where the pot’s not,
is where it’s useful.

Negative capability. This is not to say that songs have no meaning. Rather, that the songwriter’s job is to craft an empty pot. The responsibility of the songwriter is first to the song. I often do not know the meaning of the song until well into the process of writing the song, or even until after the song is done.

This is the songwriter’s first responsibility, but it is not their only responsibility. Artists live in community. We release music to the public. Even if we do not grasp the meaning ourselves, there is meaning there. The listener will parse out the meaning for themselves. We have a responsibility to the audience.

The challenge of writing a song that meets the moment is in writing something that evokes meaning in the listener without necessarily telling the listener what the meaning is.

This starts with responsibility to the song: As a matter of technique, ‘telling’ the listener what to think is not effective. ‘Telling’ rather than ‘showing’ will have your words running up against the listener’s prior beliefs, sometimes leaving them defending themselves or dismissing you as a shill for their perceived enemies.

The art is in telling a story. It is subtle. The story will imply a truth, leaving the listener to draw their own conclusions, and if the song is written effectively, perhaps those conclusions will be close to your own.

Ursala Le Guin, writing with the clarity of an elder artist and a master, says: “No matter how humble the spirit it’s offered in, the sermon is an act of aggression.”

She writes in her essay, ‘Teasing Myself Out of Thought’ of an Inner Preacher and an Inner Teacher. The inner preacher wants to cram her stories (her vessels, her clay pots) full of opinions, beliefs, Truths. The Inner Teacher seeks only to be understood. It mediates between the ‘arrogant artist self’ which says “I don’t give a damn if you understand me” and the preacher who says, “Now hear this!”

When I write, I let the unconscious lead. A word or phrase appears. I sit, as though in meditation or trance, and look at the idea from a non-dual place of no-judgement. What does it make me feel? Does it feel ‘right’? Does it feel ‘whole’?

Taking this approach throughout the entire process, I may reach an end to the song that feels right and whole, even if I can’t articulate the reasons behind the decisions I’ve made. Afterwards, I am sometimes able to look at the song more objectively, as though written by someone else (and perhaps it was not really ‘me’ who wrote it). I may be able to tease apart some of the influences there, some of the thoughts and feelings that made their way out of the unconscious and onto the page.

In this way, I can meet the moment. By staying present with what is there, with what is in front of me, with what is arising within me.

In this way, I may be able to write a song like “Suffer,” which for me carries meaning: Suffering is universal, binding humans to one another beyond superficial differences. For the listener, the song may feel different. It may feel cathartic. Maybe they feel seen and heard. Maybe they feel the song is an act of cowardice, because it does not ‘say’ what they think it should ‘say’ or what they think I am ‘saying.’

No matter. The song was crafted with care. It is honest. It was edited with a clear mind, and with a sense of responsibility towards the audience. I can rest. – Boy Golden