Recently I had an idea for a new song… and I kept trying to dismiss it.  Too familiar.  But the song wouldn’t let go of me.  I accepted that and started working at investing this genre piece (a heartbroken R&B ballad) with as much honest feeling as I could. I ended up performing it at my last gig.  It felt authentic and seemed to be well-received.

It sometimes seems like I write two kinds of songs.  Loosely categorized, there are the ‘genre pieces’, and then there are the ones that don’t fit quite as easily into a particular format.  The latter sometimes feel like they are a little more mine; that, while far from being completely original, feel more like no one else could’ve written them.

And lately I’ve felt that I’ve wanted to push past my comfort zone and further into that latter area.  I think that’s been good for me, but that’s not the point of this particular post.  The point here is that the genre songs, the ones in the more traditional formats, are still a part of me.  I still feel them; I still need to write them.

By genre songs I mean things like a 12/8 ballad, a mid-tempo rocker, a country song, an AABA Jazz standard, a 12 bar blues, a dance song, etc., etc.  There are so many genres at this point.

Being able to write a good genre song is a nice feeling.  Even though there are already ten thousand of each of them (way low estimate), writing number ten thousand and one, if it has real feeling and perhaps a slightly different spin, not only feels good, it also helps me grow as a writer, makes me more comfortable with traditions and forms that are so useful in any kind of songwriting.

I know from observing the work of writers I admire that some of their most ‘original’ work can come in very traditional settings.  Maybe partly because it’s not forced; it comes naturally because you grow up with these genres; they’re part of you.  Also, the frame of the familiar can sometimes provide a setting where an artist’s personality can really come through (think of hearing a great singer of their own material sing a cover.  Since you mostly know what’s coming, you can really hear the personality of their voice in a different way).

Thinking of some of the songwriters, writers, and filmmakers I admire, many if not most of them will mix up their more adventurous work with pieces in more familiar genres.  I’m not saying this is the right way to do it – Miles Davis didn’t do it.  The Coen Brothers don’t do it.  My point is that one doesn’t preclude the other.  Random list, off the top of my head: Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Lennon/McCartney, Prince, Kendrick Lamar, Gus Van Sant, Steven Soderbergh, Graham Greene, Georges Simenon.  People who go, or went, between envelope-pushing work and work that explores familiar territory in a personal way.

You don’t do this just for money.  You truly love the genres – and so so does the audience.  And you also hope that some of your audience will follow you into the places that are more just yours.

Maybe with the greatest artists at their best there’s no difference between these two ‘categories’.  But I still need to explore the past, to work in familiar areas.  I have to trust that whatever originality I have will still be there, unforced.

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