I Wish I Could Write Music

I guess it's just human nature to never be satisfied. Although I'm not rich, I'm comfortable. I'm writing for a living, which a lot of "aspiring" writers don't ever get to do. I'm very happily married to a wonderful woman whom I love as much as life itself and who loves me with all her heart and soul. Together, we have a very pleasant, healthy, smart and talented son. So I should be satisfied, right?

But even though he's not quite ten years old, my son can do something I can't; he can write music. I don't just mean he knows where the notes go and what they sound like. I mean he can imagine tunes in his head, write them down on staff paper, and play them back on his violin or piano. And they sound good.

Naturally, I'm proud as punch about his musical gifts. But I’m envious too. This evening I was listening to the radio and Neil Young's version of the classic Canadian folk song, "Four Strong Winds," came on.

I have always loved this song, ever since I first heard it nearly 40 years ago. Being a writer, I have always been attracted to the simplicity and stark realism of the lyrics:

And if I get there before the snow flies
And if things are lookin' good
You could meet me if I send you down the fare....

But tonight I was listening to something underneath the words. I was hearing little things like the acoustic guitar going up the scale after the chorus, for instance, and the way the steel guitar joins in unobtrusively but insistently at the same time. Musicians will talk about their lyrics as complementing the music. I've always thought of it the other way around.

I once had a musician friend who wanted to me to write lyrics with him, but we could never agree on what should come first - the words or the music. I'd write lyrics and expect him to come up with a tune for them, while he'd play me a song and expect me to write words for it. In hindsight, I think his approach was probably the right one. David Byrne once said that lyrics are just a way to trick people into listening to the music, and I suspect a lot of songwriters feel the same way. Certainly, the great opera composers are more famous now than the librettists who put words to their music.

Bruce Cockburn once said of Handel that he really knew how a write a hook. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? There's a reason more people listen to pop songs than read poetry. Springsteen has great lyrics, but only because they match the music.

So what am I saying - that writing music is a more valuable skill than writing words? Not at all. If you listen to Janis Joplin's last studio album, "Pearl," there's one instrumental track called "Buried Alive in the Blues." It wasn't intended as an instrumental, but she died before she recorded the vocals and the producers decided to include it anyway. It's a nice tune, but it's still only half a song.

What I'm saying is that people with a diversity of talents sometimes need to work together to create something really special. Even though the words are simple, try to imagine a song like "Peggy Sue" as an instrumental. It just doesn't work.

As writers, we often have the privilege of partnering with designers, artists and other creative types to produce really compelling work. Maybe even musicians. We should appreciate the fact that we have a skill that can be used to enhance all kinds of media - like music.

But I still get a little jealous sometimes that I can't write my own music.