A Quote by James Taylor
I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.
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I don't have some songwriting formula that I kinda go by. Usually it just comes by way of inspiration. Sometimes I'm inspired by a melody first and sometimes I'm inspired by a lyric. Typically, I'm inspired by an idea for a lyric and then after we get the lyric going then we write a melody to it.
Sometimes I get a lyric, and the lyric, you know, comes off the page, and goes into my brain and comes out with a melody. Other times, I may create a melody first.
Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.
I tend to write at the piano, but usually the melody and lyrics come first. Like, I'll be in the shower, and I'll start singing, and the melody and the lyric will just come out. Then I'll quickly try to finish the shower, try to remember it, record it on my phone and save it for the studio.
A lot of writing I do on tour. I do a lot on airplanes. At home, I write a lot, obviously. When I write a song, what I usually do is work the lyric out first from some basic idea that I had, and then I get an acoustic guitar and I sit by the tape recorder and I try to bang it out as it comes.
I typically will work on a lyric in a three-ring binder. On the right side, I'll write the lyric, and on the left side, I put in alternate things...and things that might be alternates or improvements. I'll turn the page and do it again. I'll turn the page and do it again, or incorporate the improvements. Eventually, I end up with some material, and often it needs to be ordered.
It would just be a pamphlet. Three pages. The first page would be Drugs I Have Taken and then a list. The next page would be People I Have Slept With and then another list. Then the last page would be Famous People I Have Partied With and then another list. Because that's all people write in their autobiographies. Cut out all the bullshit and it's just a three-page pamphlet.
I've always thought that if my death was imminent, I would read. When I can't focus on a book, I tend to keep reading the same page. My guess is, I would've read, like the first page of Nicholas Nickleby over and over again.
Once I get over maybe a hundred pages, I won't go back to page one, but I might go back to page fifty-five, or twenty, even. But then every once in a while I feel the need to go to page one again and start rewriting.
I write everything out in longhand in one fast go. And then I throw out the first few and start over again. By the end of the first draft, the whole thing's messy and disgusting and horrible, but you really understand the foundational stuff.
When I'm writing a lyric, I totally forget about the music. I'm just looking at the lyric and thinking about it almost as a separate entity. And then I'll go to my keyboard with all the lyrics printed out and try to think of how to make this a complete musical thing. I've got a very basic keyboard with some presets.
Don't tear up the page and start over again when you write a bad line-try to write your way out of it. Make mistakes and plunge on. Writing is a means of discovery, always.
I'm pretty obsessive-compulsive and I'm very fast. I tend to not write for a long period of time until I can't not write, and then I write first drafts in gallops. I won't eat right. I forget to do my laundry. I have a dog now, and I have to remember to walk him. When I write, that takes over and I can't do anything else. There's something exciting about that free fall, but then my life gets really screwed up. I've lost lots of relationships because of my having to ignore everything.
Some songs started from a bass line, some started from having the full lyric and Jim, my drummer, who's also the first guy I've been in the studio with him since 16, sometimes he'd have an idea and I'd put a lyric to it and then the track evolves, there's no set way to write a song.
Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.
I tend to write first thing, and then do my drawing later. I like to draw at night. But often I go for long stretches without drawing, because I'm trying to figure out what I'm writing.
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