Whenever I figure something out, I know that someone smarter than me has already figured it out, said it better, and been rewarded more lavishly for it. But I’m middle aged now, so I’m cool with that!
“I took a lot of words, most of them verbs, and put them against words that looked appealing to me from Whittier and other 1800s poetry…It’s an exciting way to write, without trying to steer the ship in any one direction.”
Music writing as performance
here’s something about an 8-hour live session to write and record an album
Live documentaries
Utopia in Four Movements with filmmaker Sam Green
Rick Prelinger’s presentation of archive material with live narration and audiences supported soundtrack.
Excitement of seeing the edits
Two of the most celebrated cases:
The New Yorker piece about Gorden Lish’s work on Raymond Carver’s stories: “the changes are brilliant and for the better in most cases—I look at “What We Talk About …” (Beginners) and I see what it is that you’ve done, what you’ve pulled out of it, and I’m awed and astonished, startled even, with your insights…”
And the Ezra Pound’s work on T.S. Elliot’s Waste Land.
There’s a sound that’s identified with ‘Exile’ that’s become part of the vocabulary for every rock ‘n’ roll musician subsequently,” he said. “And this is the ultimate track of the style that characterizes ‘Exile.’ It’s not sloppiness; it’s width, in terms of where everyone feels the beat. You’ve got five individuals feeling the beat in a different place. At some point, the centrifugal force of the rhythm no longer holds the band together. That ‘Loving Cup’ is about the widest area you can have without the song falling apart.
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-Don Was, quoted in the kind of music writing that captures the sense of “recipe” -oh and here’s the song |
