Song Writing VS Song Making

You may have noticed that when I talk about songs I talk about making songs rather than writing songs. Song making is a term I picked up from Utah Phillips and I think it captures the process of what I do more accurately than "writing". Maybe it's just me being picky, but the term "songwriting" tends to conjure up images of sitting at a piano with a pen and paper and very deliberately putting down music. When I write it's much more like making a piece of visual art. I start with an idea (often one that I've stumbled upon by accident) anmd build on it until it feels complete. Usually work on a song happensd in spurts. Maybe I'll come up with a line I like one day, then come up with a melody the next, than it could take a month to finish the lyrics. And nothing is actually written down. So, songmaking it is. Here are a couple of songs that I think exemplify that process pretty well.

1.Hyacinth

I came up with the first lines of this song while driving back very late at night from the last show of Raise Up Roof Beams tour last summer (after an unfortunate run in with the Lebanese Mafia). I pulled out my notebook and I jotted down a few ideas and then finished the song over the following week. Drew and I had been playing it for a while with just guitar and ukulele, but for this recording I just kept building on it until it sounded big enough. It went somewhere totally unexpected almost by accident.

2. Shine on My Darling

This song started out as a little guitar lick and was writting while it was being recorded. I probably won't ever play it live because it would be pretty boring with just one guitar.