Austin Kleon
In Jim Jarmusch’s documentary about the Stooges, Gimme Danger, Iggy Pop makes fun of something Andy Warhol said to him when they were staying at the infamous Tropicana Motel: “He said, ‘Why don’t you do some songs… just sing the newspaper. Just sing what it says in the newspaper.’ I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but that was his idea.”
It’s not terrible advice. It worked out for John Lennon, whose lyrics for The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” were inspired while reading the January 17th, 1967 edition of the Daily Mail.
And it worked out for Prince in 1986. He was shook up from an earthquake and reading various newspaper stories in the Los Angeles Times in the week before recording his song, “Sign O’ The Times.” As reported by Duane Tudahl in his fabulous book of Prince’s recording sessions:
Many of the stories… included President Reagan’s “Star Wars” antimissile program, the growing AIDS crisis, the investigation of January’s space shuttle explosion, and stories of drug abuse in the inner city were all big news stories. These blended with the Minneapolis Star Tribune and their reporting about a street gang called “The Disciples.”
Of course, there have been many songwriters who get inspiration from the headlines, and even those who write about the newspaper itself. (Getting poetry from the newspaper is a subject that interests me for obvious reasons.)
Here’s one of my favorites: Bill Callahan in Smog’s “The Morning Paper”:
“The morning paper
is on its way
It’s all bad news
on every page
So roll right over
and go to sleep
The evening sun
will be so sweet”
These songs are like Ezra Pound’s definition of literature: “News that stays news.”
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Related reading: “He could sing the phonebook!”
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Our dear friends are letting us stay in their house and this is my office for the week. I plan to practice on that Wurlitzer every morning and read and write in that cozy chair.
I feel ready to start on The Next Book. Or at least, I feel ready to think about it.
I have been listening to Bill Callahan’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest on repeat. Here’s “Writing”:
It feels good to be writing again
Clear water flows from my pen
And it sure feels good to be writing again
I’m stuck in the high rapids as night closes in
It feels good to be singing again
Yeah, it sure feels good to be singing again
From the mountain and the mountain within
It’s been five years since the last album and it’s obvious that Callahan found something new to say. He got married. He had a kid. His folks died. And then he wrote these new songs about it all. “It feels good to be writing again…”
A reporter asked Erykah Badu why she wasn’t recording and this is what she said:
I just don’t have anything to say. As a songwriter, you have to kind of have something to say, something to record, something to ignite a conversation. I don’t have anything right now. I guess I’m uploading information. After that, we’ll see.
Finally! I thought to myself. Somebody just comes out and says it.
Input and output. Import and export.
I was reading another interview with Rob Delaney, recovering from the death of his son and wrapping up Catastrophe: “What he wants now is some time to sit and think about what to say next.”
Same here.
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About a dozen years ago, new to Texas, I lied down on a floor in a room with busted air conditioning and listened to this Bill Callahan song (about moving to Texas) and it felt like heaven. (From his wonderful album, A River Ain’t Too Much To Love.) The song begins:
I did not become someone different
I did not want to be
but I’m new here
will you show me around?
This song — and this album, for that matter — like all great art, gets deeper and deeper for me over the years. Its lyrics are simple, but they are true, and all of the lines, like children, are my favorites, but today my most favorite line is refrain:
No matter how far
wrong you’ve gone
you can always turn around
And later in the song:
Turn around
Turn around
Turn around
and you may come full circle
and be new here… again.
Just a remarkable piece of music. A song that I would love to have played at my funeral.
Here is Gil-Scott Heron’s cover, from his last album, I’m New Here:
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Giles Martin’s new remix of The Beatles’ “White Album” sounds terrific, and it does exactly what it’s supposed to do: it helps me hear a 50-year-old album with fresh ears. In fact, I was surprised how new it sounded, considering it’s the Beatles record I’ve spent the most time with. When I was around 15 or 16, I sat with my headphones and a copy of Beatlesongs, and tried to map out all the instruments in the mix:
Truthfully, I think my obsession with the album had a lot to do with learning about its influence on Radiohead’s OK Computer. (I also listened to a lot of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, but I think that one was a bit beyond my grasp.)
The White Album also appealed to me because it sounded really homemade, like something I could maybe copy with my little Tascam 4-track Portastudio.
I distinctly remember setting up 3 microphones in my mom’s living room and trying to record a “Blackbird” knockoff.
And I remember starting to play with microphone placement — putting the drums in the living room while my mom was at work, and recording with the microphones in the kitchen.
I spent so much time trying to figure out new sounds I could make with my primitive equipment. I’d comb through music magazines for tips and tricks and paste them into my recording notebook. I’d keep a long list of recording ideas for later:
But mostly, I spent so much time listening. Time is the very thing that young people have. (Although, I fear today that it’s being overscheduled away.) I can’t imagine listening to a piece of music as closely now as I did back then. (I can’t imagine arranging my life in a way that I could perform such close listening.)
My sons listen that closely: my six-year-old can differentiate all the different instruments in mixes, and my 3-year-old can recite all the narration passages from this Leonard Bernstein CD. And some adults still listen that closely: In a 2006 interview with Arthur magazine, Joanna Newsom described the way Bill Callahan listens to music:
The way he listens to music is one of the most endearing and sweet things I’ve ever seen. He takes off his shoes, sets them down and gets comfortable. He kneels or sits in front of the record player, lifts the cover, reverently chooses a record, puts it on, closes the cover and just listens, start to finish. Whenever I go to see him and we listen to music like that, I register in myself how much better it feels than other ways of listening, which are like rushing to eat a meal because you’re super-hungry. You need to eat, just like you need to listen to music, but it never feels good if you do it like that. So I am trying to set my life up in a way where I don’t have to listen to music anyway other than putting on a record and sitting and listening.
Though I didn’t become a professional musician or producer or recording engineer, I like to think that this kind of exercise — studying something you love in depth — is valuable no matter what the field or the genre. The results don’t matter. When you study something so closely, in so much depth, you learn what it is to really pay attention. And paying attention is the art that builds a more meaningful and creative life.
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“Ever had one of those nights where you just couldn’t get drunk?”—Bill Callahan
No, I haven’t.
We got to Bill Callahan‘s “secret” show with Jonathan Meiburg and Thor Harris (both from the band Shearwater) just in time to listen to them warm up during their soundcheck (and snap a picture through the window). Callahan is one of my favorite songwriters, so I was excited to see him again (we saw him a couple years ago in Cleveland).
Jonathan Meiburg opened up with a round of songs on banjo and guitar. Then Callahan came out with Meiburg on guitar and Harris on drums.
Great set. Harris and Meiburg gave the songs a heavy edge—much different than the Cleveland show with a fuller, subtler band (including the fantastic Jim White on drums!)
Setlist:
Encore:
Here’s a four-minute Youtube reel of video clips I shot:
Links:
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Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. He’s the bestselling author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Read more→
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