Every spring I lose my mind

Of all the signs of divinity in the universe, one that particularly fills me with humility is songwriting. A few weeks ago I'd pulled over on my way home from services when I was feeling particularly emotional, and wrote out a ton of rough lyrics for a song. More catharsis than craft. I had no melody for them, but I felt somewhat better for having articulated my feelings, even if only to my iPhone.

This morning, I sat down at my computer with a cup of coffee and went looking for something on my phone, when I happened to come across those lyrics again. Immediately, the first line sang out to me, and I ran to my guitar and the entire song flowed out without almost no effort. How does that happen? What divine spark in a person’s brain or in the universe makes that possible?

Jeff Tweedy, in his book on songwriting titled How to Write One Song, says that this kind of songwriting isn’t magic. You lay the groundwork through craft and practice and then your brain makes those connections, even subconsciously.

On those rare occasions when a song sort of appears out of whole cloth, it feels like exhaling after you’ve been unknowingly holding your breath. It’s letting go and giving the song its own life apart from you. Michaelangelo said (or so my brain seems to believe — I won’t bother to fact check this one) that when he carved marble he let the marble tell him what the carving was supposed to be of. That the rock held within it the truth of its art, and his job was merely to bring it out. That’s how it feels with songwriting, once in a glorious while.

The song isn’t perfect, and it’s due for some editing and tweaking and riff-writing and polishing. It’s a baby; it’s going to grow up and take its final form. But like a baby much of that form is determined and only the details remain to be discovered.

From “Every Spring I Lose My Mind”:

Every spring I lose my mind
My memory floods with every song
And I turn off the radio
And open up the windows just to breathe