Guy Smith | November 22, 2006
I was at a songwriter’s event in Berkeley (and what the Sam Hell an ex-cowboy is doing in Berkeley, California is another question altogether) when a competition judge warned the participants “You’ll stand a better chance if your song has a bridge.”
Being cut of rough cloth, I thought this notion absurd and an insult to [...]
Guy Smith | October 11, 2006
Songs are short stories set to music. Aside from the rubbish once known as disco, most songs have a very compact story.
* The average novel starts at 80,000 words
* A novella is around 30,000
* Short fiction starts at 1,000
* Most three stanza, one chorus songs … 200
A songwriter must struggle with almost every word [...]
Guy Smith | September 24, 2006
James McMurtry is evidence that the line between madness and genius if very thin … thankfully.
Like a sonic lovechild born from Ray Wylie Hubbard and Tom Waits, McMurtry writes songs that are beautifully ugly in a down-home sort of way. Waits can sing depressingly about alcoholic love affairs while McMurtry sings boisterously of alcoholic carnal [...]
