TomBlog - how I write a song?
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“How I Write A Song”
Writing a song is not something I truly understand. I get out of bed, walk about the house and, if I happen to pass one of the many guitars I've non-strategically placed abouts, I start to play and hum in an absent-minded sort of way. Sometimes I'm reminded of something I did a day or two ago and I build that in to what I'm doing. The paths start to meet somewhere, the synapses flutter and the hodge-podge of ideas, that go into every song, start to focus and organise themselves. A song begins.
I relish those moments. They are, without doubt, the reason I keep making music.
Sometimes a song is years in gestation. On our new album, 'How We Operate', there's a song called, 'See the World', that started on a summer's morning in 2000. I found a guitar line and that was it for about 2 years. A melody started to breeze in after that. One of my favourite songs is Ooh la la by The Faces and I knew my song had some of it's DNA. I threw some sha-la-la's in my nascent noodlings as a reference for how I wanted things to end up.
I wrote that song for Ben to sing, so I took it to him before all the words were written: it can be much easier to sing your own words. I had a loose jumble of lyrical ideas, but Ben told me what he thought it was about, filled in some blanks, and a song got finished.
“How I Write A Song”
Writing a song is not something I truly understand. I get out of bed, walk about the house and, if I happen to pass one of the many guitars I've non-strategically placed abouts, I start to play and hum in an absent-minded sort of way. Sometimes I'm reminded of something I did a day or two ago and I build that in to what I'm doing. The paths start to meet somewhere, the synapses flutter and the hodge-podge of ideas, that go into every song, start to focus and organise themselves. A song begins.
I relish those moments. They are, without doubt, the reason I keep making music.
Sometimes a song is years in gestation. On our new album, 'How We Operate', there's a song called, 'See the World', that started on a summer's morning in 2000. I found a guitar line and that was it for about 2 years. A melody started to breeze in after that. One of my favourite songs is Ooh la la by The Faces and I knew my song had some of it's DNA. I threw some sha-la-la's in my nascent noodlings as a reference for how I wanted things to end up.
I wrote that song for Ben to sing, so I took it to him before all the words were written: it can be much easier to sing your own words. I had a loose jumble of lyrical ideas, but Ben told me what he thought it was about, filled in some blanks, and a song got finished.
posted by Gomez at 8:48 PM
3 Comments:
^ James! I met you! I mocked you! Hope you had a good time, even if my clipboard skillz are far superior to yours...
Thanks for sharing your process and ALSO for extending your U.S. tour. We will be happy to drive to NY for your gig after going to OR, D.C. and Boston earlier this year.;) Congratulations for 10 great years of music together and hope you have many many more. Can still remember listening to your first album and making everyone I knew listen to it, too! I have taken friends and family to your shows this year and from talking to people at the venues, many who only had your newest album are now going back to get the others. THANKS.
A lovely mental picture of you Tom, wandering about the house and idly picking up guitars... Far more productive and romantic than my own wanderings around the house today... but of course you are producing beautiful, glorious music, and I am only trying to produce a uni essay, one that I will go to any lengths to avoid... even posting mindless replies to your six month old blogs.
But I am in a rather Mezzy frame of mind, thanks TWO servings of fresh, live Gomez in a week!! Surely I'm the luckiest girl in the Southern Hemisphere! First, a huge performance at the East Coast Blues and Roots, then a more intimate Metro gig last night.. where my normally rather sensible friend and I (who, really, are old enough to know better) were reduced to a jumping, screaming, rambling mess thanks to being RIGHT UP THE FRONT!! We were on the Ian side of the stage but really it's you, Tom, who makes our knees tremble... so next time it's front row right!
Meanwhile, we'd like to let you know we have a kitchen stocked full of utensils, and if you ever want to come over and play Simon and Garfunkle on the frying pan, it's ok with us!
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