Note #5: On Songwriting Complexity
On songwriting complexity
Or its lack; chord fixation; Bill Callahan; Tom Waits; Radiohead
originally published on February 18, 2023
As I do the unprecedented, for me, which is to record two different versions of a song (“Falling”), I recognize that I prefer the second version. I did this primarily to figure out the structure (though it is often just to improve the previous version). Here’s what happened.
I was putting the A slide to the A7omit3 (that’s the chord name that my chord finder calls it, basically 005050) after every second line of the verse. This was adding an extra minute or so by the end of the song, as well, it made this part, which I thought should be special, or unique, appear repetitive. Once I went to putting this part around the verse (almost like parenthesis), it both introduces and outros the verse, which in its own way, the verse is the most compelling, hook-y part of the song. Now, there is still the matter of how to get the lyrics to fit. This song has the most complex, comprehensive, or perhaps involved lyrics that I’ve ever written. I was trying to get away from my usual mumbling along to the track and deciphering later what I was singing. So I went into it somewhat thematically.
Then I decided that my song was bothering me. It was too long, too complex. I get into this habit of verse/chorus/verse/bridge/chorus/verse. I say habit because I find my choruses are usually not as interesting to me once I hear them repeated (played three or four lines in a row). Here’s an example. The chords go G, A, Dm, back to G. This then occurs for four lines of verse. That’s a lot of G. I’m not sure how to break out of this, other than to put a different chord in there, but that then screws with the melody. But this may be a simple problem that I am complicating, which falls into that category of my usual songwriting hacks that I need to work out.
This then leads to the question: can I change the melody?
For some reason, I get fixed on these melodies and the chord structure. It’s as if it becomes annealed into the only thing it can be, and I can’t change it. The only thing I can remind myself is to try to avoid that pattern (using the same chord in a sequence) next time.
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As well, I don’t love the bridge. I feel like my bridges are almost always replicating from one song to the next (in fact, they aren’t, but they can seem like it). Should the bridge have more happening, a counterpoint chord, for example? Perhaps.
Why does it feel like my songs are getting overly complicated? Why can Bill Callahan basically do a Gm and C chord through an entire song and it doesn’t seem repetitive? (I was watching “Apocalypse”, a tour film that his wife made in 2014. The song: America). A lot of it has to do with the lyrics. Callahan is writing really interesting lyrics; his singing is unique, an not anything I would call typical. He inflects in a way that makes his voice a counterpoint instrument. This is an exciting and valuable approach.
I suppose a balance is between the lyrics and the music. I am at times so caught up in the structure, and then the lyrics become less a part of that, more a thing in themselves. There has to be a synthesis, which occasionally comes together once the song has become solidified in my playing it.
Then, as I was again sort of beating myself up about my shortcomings (notice that happens a lot? I am resilient, however), I saw this in the Tom Waits book, where he was talking about the change of direction that he took with the album Blue Valentine (in 1978):
“It wasn’t 100 percent successful, but it’s usually the small breakthroughs that give you a tunnel to laterally make some kind of transition. The title track was a breakthrough for me, using that kind of Yardbirds fuzz guitar, having the drummer using sticks rather than brushes, small things like that.”
In terms of progress, I can definitely say I have occasional small breakthroughs.
And in another epigraph from that book, Waits says this:
“I would rather be a failure on my terms than a success on somebody else’s. That’s a difficult statement to live up to, but then I’ve always believed the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them there are.”
Radiohead retrospective
I was listening to the sequence of five Radiohead albums that I have (from 1997 through 2007), and I determined that Hail to the Thief and perhaps In Rainbows are my favorites. This may be because I’ve heard to death most of the other albums, to the point where I begin to take them for granted. I love, of course, OK Computer; the brilliance in that album is undeniable; unassailable. In fact, Radiohead can scarcely have put out, ever, a bad album. (Maybe their first one? Though I’ll admit I’ve never listened to it, my suggestion is based on critic consensus). But you get to a powerful song like “There There” on Hail to the Thief, and I was literally crying. Something in that song taps some emotional chord in me. The primitive sounding drums that open it, then Ed O’Brien’s fantastic guitar chime. I get chills when that comes on. The build up is powerful. The lyrics (Thom Yorke has an incredible instrument with that voice). What is it in this song that hits me where it does? I have no idea. May have to delve into those chords. Then that fantastic spill over of chiming guitars, Jonny Greenwood’s wailing guitar at the end.
