Spokane Songwriters

The main picture on this website, the hands of a guitar player and the saying "We all have our own song to sing", was given to me over 30 years ago when I first started writing songs. I had only written a few songs, but someone liked them enough to give me that picture as a present.

Since then I have written many songs, and studied many songwriters.

I taught a class on Songwriters for Spokane Parks&Rec last year, and we studied the lives of many great songwriters, including many traditionalists like Willie Nelson, Harlan Howard, Hank Williams, A.P. Carter, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, and modern songwriters like John Prine, Gillian Welch, and the late great Townes Van Zandt; one of my personal favorites.

The old country bluesmen wrote their own songs, which were stories and expressions of the lives that they lived. The old folk players did the same.

Tin Pan Alley became a mass song writing factory after the turn of the century, turning out commercial "hook-based" songs for mass consumption. Nashville did the same decades later, hiring songwriters like Roger Miller to sit in rooms and write songs all day in production mode.

Some people say you have to live a troubled life and feel pain in order to write good songs. Other songwriters, like Harlan Howard, made his living by hanging around barrooms and listening for phrases and sayings that he could use in a song, like "pick me up on your way down", and "heartaches by the number".

Certainly Townes Van Zandt lived one of the most troubled lives; rejecting the opulent wealth he was born into in Texas, and becoming a wandering minstrel his entire life, plagued by alcoholism and drug abuse, but writing some wonderfully touching and poignant songs.

I write songs based on my personal experiences in life. I was born in New York City, and have lived on the East and West Coasts.  I've worked a variety of jobs in my life, from dishwasher and migrant worker picking vegetables with Mexican nationals, to being a Fortune 100 executive with 3 of the biggest corporations in the world, to working for a non-profit corporation, owning my own business, and being a performing musician and songwriter.

The most interesting people I have met in my life I've met through music, and most of my friends have come from my musical contacts.  I had the fortune of having a couple musical mentors who were the real thing; an old fiddler from Mullenberg county Kentucky, and an old beatnik/hippie revolutionary from the hills of California. When they would play music, they would close their eyes and become part of their songs. I notice that Townes Van Zandt does the same thing.

So I write songs to tell stories of my life; experiences I want to share with people, that I think are interesting, and may be beneficial to others.  A Native American friend  told me that I was a story teller, and maybe that's what I am, armed with a guitar.

But why do YOU write songs, and what are you trying to say ?

Frank Delaney

 

Hey there folks. I finally got on. I'm Dave McRae, and I'm glad to be a part of this.

I'm not sure exactly why I write songs. One reason could be that after learning dozens of songs through the years that were written by others, I've begun to realize that the melodies and rythms found in my own head are not like anyone else's. I hear a mix of blues, rockabilly, country and bluegrass that is based on what I listened to years ago, starting with the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, the Byrds, the Rolling Stones and theWho. Then I became a Grateful Deadhead (I'm still there). I loved it when folks such as the Flying Burrito Bros, Graham Parsons and Emmylou Harris began mixing rock, country and bluegrass.

It's hard to find that mix of music on the radio because it doesn't fit into designated formats. So I'm most entertained when I'm making my own versions of the eclectic sounds I like to hear by others. I'll get some sort of riff in my head, clearly based in work by others, but with some twist of my own added, and pretty soon I'm looking for a topic and lyrics. Once I saw John Fogarty on a talk show, and he said he keeps a notepad with him so that when snippets of lines, rhymes, titles and topics enter his head, he can write them down, even if they might not get used for years. I haven't been religious about doing this (I do have a day job), but I try to do a version of this. It gets to where I turn the car radio off, because the music in my head is way more fun and interesting. I call it listening to my "inner band". Think cell phones are dangerous for driving? Try writing songs. I should get a little tape recorder, I suppose.

So I guess I write songs because I've got all the parts inside me, and they seem to be clamoring to get out. I've always loved word games, and rhyming is just a word game. I write a lot of happy and silly songs, because I laugh at myself and my world most of the time. I don't have the angst to write the true blues, but I've got the wry humor to write rockabilly toe tappers.

Another reason is practical. When you write your own songs, there is no confusion as to who gets the credit. I don't worry about BMI or ASCAP. I can play anywhere, and freely record what I want. In fact I better get on the stick and copywrite my songs. The downside to this is that lately I go to jams with other folks, and when it gets to my turn, I don't know the simple basic songs that everyone knows as well as I used to. My songs are pretty staightforward and simple in my own mind, and I will introduce them to groups of people I play with often. Just as often, I'll realize "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you all about that F#m, or other oddball chord or rythm that I've used".

I guess I just like having a style of playing and a song list that's my own. Others are welcome to it also, of course. A few years ago I started playing my guitar like a banjo, using a three finger style that incorporates banjo rolls and a thumb-forefinger "flat-picking" sound in various combinations, usually intermixed in the same song. It's not quite lead work, but it's more than "Boom-chuck" strumming rythm. So I had to start writing some songs that fit my style of playing.

I get more excited to practice when the song I'm practicing is one of my own. So my playing gets better because of it.

I've rambled sufficiently. Never ask a college instructor to write in response to something. It's a clear case of "be careful what you wish for".

See you all soon. I'm playing at the circle on May 24th. Got a few new tunes to try out. Yeah!

I view song writing as more of a personal activity. The best songs are written alone in solitude. It’s a lot like masturbating, in that it gratifies the writer far more than anyone else. Usually nobody knows about it, because it is too embarrassing to do in front of other people. You sort of finish writing your mess and then you look at it and throw it away discretely and hope nobody ever finds it.

Sometimes a song seems pretty good, so it becomes part of a live performance, which is a bit like masturbating on a web cam. Initially the performer is overwhelmed with self-consciousness and is perhaps terrified. And the performance is usually boring unless the performer can arouse the audience. Like anything else it gets better with practice. In weird cases, the audience likes it and the performer becomes more extroverted and feels inspired to do more.

Interesting analogy!  Sounds like you need to get out more. Seriously, though, it's true that I don't often share my songwriting efforts until I feel like I've got a finished product, whatever that is. It's certainly true that performing a new song for the first time for anybody is enough to make a body way nervous. But, like you say Biffdebris, after a few of your songs are accepted when performed, you become inspired to write some more.

I've always figured myself to be an average guy with normal good taste. I've recently decided that since I share common tastes in music with lots of other folks, if I like something I've written myself, others will probably like it too. So it's lately become easier to introduce my own new stuff to jams and performances. The songwriters circle makes it even easier, since folks come to hear exactly what we offer-- original new tunes.

I performed at Auntie's a couple of weeks ago, with a friend of mine, Dannie Lynn Plummer, and we sang a slow waltz sort of a thing that I wrote (called "Road Waltz), dealing with being on the "flip side" of life (past middle age). Imagine my surprise and gratification to see people with tears in their eyes. Not that I want to make people cry, but to move people like that, with a simple ditty, is an extraordinary feeling.

So carry on, Biffdebris. Just keep your hands where we can see them when you perform at the circle. Wouldn't want you to get stuck on some new lyrics or something.

I Look forward to meeting you. I'm a wiseass in person, too.

I don't often think about why I write songs.  I've been writing in one form or another--stories, songs, poems, letters-- since I was a kid in a place long ago and far away both emotionally and intellectually.  I do think about how to write songs, the practical stuff like rhymn and rhythm or not, chord structure, the over all song structure and usually conclude that if I keep it simple it will probably be okay. 

I have always considered myself a folk singer, and have never been commercially sucessful, but have played out a lot over the years for free and for money.  (I really do believe, by the way, that artists should be paid for what they do when playing a commercial establishment like a coffee house or bar.  If artists are not being paid when playing in such places there is something wrong with the venue, and it should be avoided. But that's just me.)  The idea that artists are unworthy of their hire is absurd but deeply ingrained in the socially conditioned idea that the arts don't really matter or have any "value."  Sad but true.

Who has value is also determined by lables attached to artists.  In the last decade or so, I've noticed that there is a distinction made between "old" folk and "new" folk out there in the media world and it puzzles me.  Any witer who is working today is contemporary and the lables of old and new only serve to divide what should be, I think, a community of artists rather than a cohort of competing interests.  No, I'm not a utopian thinker--self-interest is a huge force in the human world--but I do know that more harm comes from isolation and exclusion than good.  To be excluded form practicing a craft as a writer or performer because a person is either old or new is counter-productive if not just downright silly.  

I have been privileged throughout my life to have heard many kinds of music, and I have a great admiration for the artists, old and new, who have and continue to excite my interest.  I like to think that what I do as a songwriter is part of a tradition with roots in many places, and I will continue to practice as a writer until I can no longer hold a pencil.  Why do I write?  I simply can't imagine not writing. 

So let me sit here and listen

while the wind speaks to me  

Its voice a quiet presence

In the shade of this white oak tree

I've got nothin to leave this world

Except the songs I sing

When the spirit wakes me

From this life of troubled dreams

 

These lyrics are form a song of mine titled "I Have Stumbled Through the Darkness" that I wrote some years ago, copyright 2001.

Peace,

Laddie Ray Melvin

 

       

I felt like responding to your remark:

The idea that artists are unworthy of their hire is absurd but deeply ingrained in the socially conditioned idea that the arts don't really matter or have any "value."

I agree completely! This lack of appreciation for the arts is a symptom of a SOCIALLY RETARDED AREA. There are some parts of the world where people actually DO leave the viewing angle of their TV screens to go listen to a performing artist once in awhile. Unfortunately, most people in the Spokane area hold a performing artist in the same regard as a guy with a cardboard sign by the road trying to raise money for alcohol research. They even take pains to avoid making eye contact! I wrote a rant for the In-blander along these lines a couple of years back. You can find it here: http://www.occasionalstring.com/gofigure.html

For most people around here, the arts have no value whatsoever. For evidence, compare the crowd size at a typical concert to the crowd size at a typical sports event. Do you think there is any way that will change? Only if there is a genetic mutation! Be encouraged by the rare instances where the locals breed with people from somewhere else.

You crack me up, Dave. You said:

I Look forward to meeting you. I'm a wiseass in person, too

The funny part is you have known me for about 20 years.

Steve

Hey there Stevie:

I figured Biffdebris was some anonymous personage who somehow found his way to this forum. Didn't know you had a nom de plume. So I responded to some one I didn't know. Now it's all in the clear. I took the bait and swallowed the hook. So be it!

                                                                            Dave

Hello fellow songwriters!  We (I) write songs because I have something to say that needs to be said from either the heart or soul, depending upon what you have gleened from life around you and within you.  I started writing songs while walking to and from school and soon discovered I was a hopeless romantic and when a young lovely woman gave me a smile or a laugh or a compliment, my mind would go into orbit to please (appease) her into wanting to get to know me.  Guess it was a way to win her over.  Never quite worked the way I dreamed but it was good practice.  Now that I am more mature and wiser to the pain and love of the world, I write more towards the dreams of others who need to hear that in some way they are not alone, that the problems they have can be found within the essence of a country ballad or a gospel song that can help them on their journey to knowing Christ and finding peace, love, and joy. 

I worked as a DJ for over 25 years throughout the US and in Germany while in the service and locally I worked for KGA and my last job in broadcasting was in 1989 at 96 Apple FM, KKPL, when I decided radio had made too many changes for me to carry on in that endeavor.  The creativeness was taken away and it was "MORE MUSIC, LESS TALK!" and for someone with a creative mind, it became so boring that I didn't want to even open the mic to make 10second little mentions of who we were and what we did.  So, I took to managing theaters for a few years and then went on to becoming an over-the-road driver and that's where a lot of my songs began to truly come out.  I could sit alongside the road at dusk in a rest stop or alongside the road by a soothing river, or on top of a mountain pass, and come to terms with the songs that I was creating.  It was great and the collections of songs that I have created are unigue in that I no longer immulate the artists that I admired and looked up to.  Artists like Donovan, Dylan, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Michael Franks, Jackson Browne, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, and groups such as The Doobie Bros., and CS&N and The Eagles.  There are others, too.  Far too many to list but I'm sure you get the general idea.  I suppose one could define my musical style as Country-Folk with a hint of blues thrown in from time-to-time.  I hope to be able to share with you my music in the near future.  I would also like to get to know all of you and perhaps find time to jam and maybe even write a song or two together?

Thank you all for your music and this website.  As David Crosby sez: "Music Is Love" and it needs to be shared by all!

Marv Donovan

Hi Marv: Thanks for joining us.  Spokane Songwriters has been together for about 2 years and we've done shows nearly every month since then. We've highlighted a number of younger songwriters, maybe about 6 of them, and a dozen or more people in their 40's50's etc.  It has been a real encouragement to a lot of people.  WHy don't you come and join us at one of our monthly events at the Empyrean, and then maybe we can schedule you to perform sometime in the Spring.  I am the scheduler and we are getting booked all the way into Marrch already.

 

Bill 

Howdy All !

Cool, I'm glad to see this , it's awsome. Why do I write songs? Sometimes I think I know, other times I can only guess. I think first it was a way to verbelize feelings and deal with them, a way to encapsulize emotions, put them in a jar with the lid on it, hold it up and look at it from different angles and be able to re-evaluate them each time you sang it. It is therapy, it is self evaluation, fantacy and fiction, a way to memorialize the moment, freeze it in time. It certainly meets a creative need that some of us have, some don't , why are we different??  Sometimes it is serious, silly and satirical,  shallow? but what ever it is, it is something that lets my mind breath, and for what ever reason it encourages  me to keep going, with life, and turning the page, thankful for another thread from life that is weaving the hat that I wear, for every to see and hear.  My only regret, God I wish I could spell better !

Stan  

Do you still write songs and if so do you write for other people? How would you go about doing it? would you have to hear them sing first.