Sometimes when I get an idea for a new song I get excited and I’m off to the races. But just as often, my first reaction is along the lines of, ”This is just stupid”… or some other equally dismissive reaction. “Dumb, asinine, inane, idiotic…” Choose your poison.
Then I think it over. Usually my next reaction falls into one of two categories. The first is to agree with my original assessment: Call it what you like, this is not an idea worth pursuing.
My other common reaction is more complicated: Though some things about the idea may in fact seem to me to be stupid, or somewhat stupid, the song idea is still worth pursuing.
Why would I pursue an idea at all if I have such mixed feelings about it? Well, aside from that I’m complicated, not infrequently confused and indecisive, and have mixed feelings all the time… songs themselves are funny things.
The pleasure that songs give often operates at a very ‘stupid’, lizard brain level. Along with our thoughtful, appreciative response to an insightful lyric, a well-turned melody, a cool chord progression, there’s the lizard brain pleasure response to the simple joy of music and sound. At least for me, this is my favorite reaction. And it does not happen anywhere near the intellect.
So sometimes my brain is telling me, “This is stupid”, but other parts of me are sending messages of interest and pleasure, or the possibility of pleasure. This is truly worthy of attention too.
For me, “This is stupid” can mean something more like, “This is too simple” or “This is too poppy – i.e., somehow below me. But I love and am interested in writing all kinds of songs that hopefully stimulate listeners in all kinds of ways – including, but absolutely not exclusively, through their brains.
Many of the great experiences in life not only have nothing to do with our brains – they happen when our minds are briefly quiet and we’re just there.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the brain and try to stimulate and use mine as well and frequently as I can!
But songs operate on many levels, including ones that go deeper and wider than the brain can go. And when I’m writing I need to be responding from those places, as well as from my discriminating and very judgmental mind.
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Sonny Bono told a story about Phil Specter. Bono was a percussionist and Yes-Man for Specter. Specter was listening to playback of some classic, like, “Da Doo Ron Ron.” And Specter says, “This is just so dumb!” Bono-the-Yes-Man doesn’t get it. And he says something like, “Yeah. It’s really stupid, Boss. But we’ll record something better tomorrow.” Specter stops him, and says, “No. We’re listening to Pure Gold!”
From The Baltimore Sun: (Bono, talking about Specter.)
Is it dumb enough?
“He was saying, ‘Is it simple enough communication to be just totally understood in just plain language?’ and he summed all of that up in, ‘Is it dumb enough?’ ” Bono told the Los Angeles Times, one of innumerable newspapers that published Is-Sonny-Stupid? stories after he was elected to Congress in 1994.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-01-07-1998007141-story.html
I think I got the Da Doo Ron Ron story from the linear notes of the Specter Boxed Set, “Back to Mono.” I wouldn’t buy the set today. Because now I know what a psychopath Specter is and was. And yes, that clouds and taints my impressions of his music, even his production. I can’t listen to PYT by MJ for similar reasons. Maybe I need to buy, “Let It Be: naked”? But I like the strings. I enjoy the goop. I like the Wah-Wah, even if I don’t need it.