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This page: Formulas for Songwriting
'That's the problem with choruses: They often come off as big, goofy sales pitches.'
Formulas for Songwriting
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You've said in other interviews that you like to write in the middle of the night. Is that still your routine?
It used to be a late-night thing. Sometimes it still is, but it's been a little more forgiving recently, as far as letting me get some sleep. For a long time I dwelled on the romanticism of finishing something as the sun was coming up. I was wrapping myself in being inspired, rather than pondering something. So now I'll write at noon, or I'll write at dinnertime -- it's just whenever it strikes.
But you're still not setting this or that time for a regular writing routine.
No. It's important to always try to keep that muscle going. But I haven't written for eight months, not since Christmas. I'm going crazy about it, but at the same time I know better than to try to force it.
It's been three years since you released your previous album. What's taken so long?
The label I was on [A&M] got bought out by a larger label, and my fate on that label was in suspended animation.
You were still productive during that period.
Yeah, I was recording and doing shows. Of course, it was with a very low profile, but that wasn't by choice [laughs]. A lot of people thought I had quit.
On most of your material you follow a pattern of building tension through the verses and releasing it in explosive choruses. But you also do tunes that don't have choruses at all. What determines when a song does or does not need a chorus?
It's just natural, you know? There's nothing worse than a forced bridge or chorus; those are absolute atrocities. It's weird, but some songs don't need a chorus. They don't need the sales pitch; they just need the language. That's the problem with choruses: They often come off as big, goofy sales pitches. If you're doing that, then it's wrong. It should be something that you want to sing along to. Again, it's something that happens naturally. There are songs you'll never hear where it's like, "God, I gotta let up here!"
You've also done the occasional tune like "Time and Time Only," where the tension seems to dissipate during the chorus.
Yeah, now that you mention it, there does seem to be more doubt in the chorus than in the verses -- you can hear it in the cadence of the language too.
Your lyrics usually tell a story or capture an image with some kind of narrative implications. Yet the message is often a little obscure. Do you consciously try to avoid being too explicit in spelling out a story?
I just want it to be felt. I like that feeling when I'm writing and I can feel all the parts of my brain being stimulated. Ultimately, I hope that's what my listeners experience, so that they can come to their own conclusions about what's being said. It's not intentionally vague; it just feels good, like some endorphins are being released.
The first line is often among the strongest in your songs. Do you always begin writing with that opening image?
That's probably when the inspiration is the freshest. Generally, I'll be strumming on the guitar or messing around with a keyboard, and I don't see it coming but something falls out of my mouth, and there it is; that's what I was looking for. It's like walking around in a dark room, trying to find the light switch.
Some of your songs, like "Guilty" or "Chrome," are built in lyrical litanies. This device seems to let you use less linear but more compelling images as a call-and-response device.
"Symphony" [i.e., "I Hear a Symphony"] is like that too, and "Heartache Weather." It's kind of like circling one point and taking a snapshot of it from each angle. That feels good; it's almost three-dimensional. I don't think about it, because those songs don't always come. A beautiful song that does that is U2's "One." I don't think I've written a song as beautiful as that, but those songs do just fall out. Petty has said it, Bono has said it, Dylan has said it: Those songs are written almost in the time it takes to sing 'em. It's like being a camera with a really fast shutter.
It's also a more intuitive, less craft-driven process. You've come up with lines like "the bunting of corruption and fate," or "the big and haunted bed" in these types of tunes -- lines that may not fit so easily into a more linear narrative structure.
It's probably more like … well, another word I hate is "poetry," because that's been bastardized by open mics, but it uses a more poetic part of the mind. I'm never been big on crossword puzzles, but I imagine writing this kind of a song is a similar experience -- it's just real accidental.
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