Untitled_
A series of ill-measured doses had muddled his lefts with his rights. It would usually take him well over an hour to move from the spot in which he had previously fallen victim to slumber.
A fleshy zig zag flattened on a pilling carpet sprawl…
He would stare at the patches of mould on the ceiling transfixed and motionless, counting the dots, imagining galaxies within the layers of damp fungus. Entire civilisations; families, homesteads and settlements; fathers, sons, mothers and daughters. Shifting squares brimming in a make shift cosmopolis. His gaze would rarely falter until a violent war -or- vile epidemic had raised them to the ground. A microscopic populous extinguished in the workings of his warped imagination. Each drip a mutiny, every dot a revolution rife with awful secrets stored inside the make up of his judgement…
See God was but a demon scorned and he was but a vessel tasked to carry out his will on earth.
‘Sleep well sweet princess’ were the last words he remembered uttering in the presence of his only love. Limbs locked in darkness; lovers so dysfunctional, devoid of everything but lust.
That morning he woke to a letter explaining everything. A void within the arches opened up like kaleidoscopic blossom in-and-amongst the drug sheen. Dusty beams of floating skuzz shimmered in the morning light, shining though the gaps in the drapes. Mothers and daughters dancing, fathers and sons at work; microscopic galaxies, airborne and steadfast, clashing in the cubby holes, all-the-time-everywhere, forever at war, never at peace.
Unperturbed, he rolled over, set his gaze and began sharpening the weaponry…
The ancient art of songwriting_
We were sat on the Eurostar earlier trying to write a new song. There were no rules to what we were writing, the song had no specific home or mission, it wasn’t bound by any particular theme or topic, we simply wanted to let our creative juices flow to see what we could come up with. After 4 bars we were stumped, but we did end up getting to around the 8 bar mark before succumbing to sleep. The first 4 bars were as follows…
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It was raining like hell when we stepped out the house
we weren’t ready to wrestle the flood
repeat the outpouring till morning comes calling
Where everything ends with a thud …
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Now, we don’t know about you but we find this songwriting lark eternally challenging - at times we find it hugely frustrating, at other times it is near impossible, but sometimes it just clicks. While those frustrating x impossible moments can feel extremely hard at the time, it is safe to assume that they are simply a product of us having high expectations about the quality of our writing. Long story short, if what we are writing is not strong enough then everything comes crashing down until we believe it to be good enough.
Think painstaking and emotional quality control if you will…
So, how does one go about writing that next killer song? This question is impossible to answer across the board as the sheer scale of genres and sub-genres (and sub-sub genres) present in the world of music make it that way, however, we have thought about it long and hard and in our books emotion is key at least 99% of the time. Put it this way, those rare exceptions, those emotionless pop hits (the Gangnam styles of this world) are not designed to be taken serious and pull at any heartstrings now are they?
There are endless tutorials and how to’s about improving your songwriting skills online, but they are the same as ‘painting by numbers’ for aspiring artists. In reality, the key is to identify which elements of writing lyrics reap the most potent rewards in regards to triggering an emotional response and target them until the result is a song x album x EP x mixtape that really speaks volumes about that particular emotion. Repeat this process until the results are potent enough to hit the studio with, repeat.
If all else fails, we suggest listening to other artists who inspire you and try to find emotional truth in the music they write. An example, well, you simply cannot fail with David Bowie - the legendary performer is both as well-rounded and as cutting-edge as you are ever likely to find. Famous for his many guises, it is Bowie’s ever-fluxing songwriting techniques that have inspired us for what feels like a millennia. Click here to learn more about Bowie’s ’42 random and obtuse words that describe his writing process’ and if that isn’t inspiring enough be sure to click here to learn more about his ‘Verbasizer’.
http://www.avclub.com/article/david-bowie-releases-list-of-42-random-and-obtuse–97029