Behold, the key change in the last verse of Girls on the Beach.
Eb Cm7 Fm7 Bb7 As the sun dips out of sight E C#7 F#m7 Am6 Couples on the beach at night
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The mind of Brian
April 20, 2009 – 9:24 pm
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In another life, I wrote these songs
July 18, 2008 – 11:36 pm
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So I’m digging through the scores of songs I’ve written, re-learning old favorites, building a new set to play out live.
And I have a terrible memory for stuff. I feel the chord changes, and know these songs cold on some subliminal level, but the fingerings become a mystery to me after six months or so. After four years, or ten years, forget about it. Unless I left accurate tablature, I can never play these songs exactly the same again.
But I can try. And as I play through things tonight, I’m amazed at the little things I learn that I actually created. It’s like the goldfish, who comes around the corner in his fish bowl, every single time, and says “Hey, look guys, cool castle!”
Some of these old songs, songs that have never been released, are amazing. Yeesh, why didn’t “Accomplishing, Believing” make the album cut for First Words. And the bridge to “Great Mistake” makes my hair stand on end.
Oh well… maybe on the next album.
Finish everything
December 5, 2007 – 7:16 am
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Recently, I gave advice to someone who has been writing songs for years, but who has never been able to “make a record.”
Mr. Lennon was asked once to give advice to aspiring songwriters. His #1 piece of advice? “Finish everything. Don’t dwell on things.”
Go through your list of songs, and be brutal. Set aside anything that’s lost its magic for you. You’ll find some songs which had great potential, which you sadly have overworked while you learned to produce/record/mix. They’ve served you well, but they’re never going to be finished. So let them be.
A friend urged me to do that once, and spun it so nicely. “That stuff will be in your early years box set, “he said, “when you’re a star and have finished your 10th major release.”
Chin up though: whatever you set aside was not wasted work. It’s helped you to learn how to write and engineer, entertained you, and inspired you to keep writing… Remember, you can’t waste time writing. Whatever you create, good or bad, is all part of the process.
-G
Lost geniuses
September 12, 2007 – 12:13 am
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A few months back, blurry-eyed from trying to write eight (good) songs in a week, I found myself blindly searching google for, things. Ideas, images, anything to get an inspiration for a lyric or twelve. I’m a ‘reactive writer.’ For me, the hardest part of writing a song is writing the first few lines. After I have something to sing, the rest just pours out… years of practice have taught me to guide the process, but I admit there’s a whole lot of “holding on for dear life” involved.
Trying something new, I started searching google for combinations of words I was interested in writing about, trying to steal a spark. Somehow doing that, I stumbled in to Project Gutenberg, and fell upon the writings of Charles S. Brooks. I honestly could not tell you how I got there. Serendipity, I guess…
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20095/20095-h/20095-h.htm
Somewhere in the middle of this essay, I started reading. I don’t know how many people have read this since it was published in 1915. I’m sure it’s tailed off significantly over the years. It’s in the Public Domain now, which is good for a songwriter (yay theft!), and perhaps the ideal fate for something that should become immortal.
Honestly, this is genius work. And it’s forgotten, or at least mostly forgotten. As a creator of something that I think has lasting value, it’s humbling and grounding to think that there’s a very good chance that every piece of music I write will be lost to history. Or maybe someone will stumble upon my music, late at night, decades from now, and raise a toast to my cleverness?!
At this minute there is a black book that looks down upon me like a crow. It is “Crime and Punishment.” I read it once when I was ill, and I nearly died of it. I confess that after a very little acquaintance with such books I am tempted to sequester them on a top shelf somewhere, beyond reach of tiptoe, where they may brood upon their banishment and rail against the world.
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Right now, if I dared, I would climb to the roof again, and I would sit with my feet over the edge and crane forward and do crazy things just because I could. Then maybe my neighbors would mistake the point of my philosophy and lock me up; would sympathize with my fancies as did Sir Toby and Maria with Malvolio. If one is to escape bread and water in the basement, one’s opinions on such slight things as garters and roofs must be kept dark. Be a freethinker, if you will, on the devil, the deep sea, and the sunrise, but repress yourself in the trifles.
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