What Kind of Love Song?

This is my latest video (and my latest song). It is another attempt at an annual birthday song for my wife Carolyn. Some others, including "A Pretty Good Start" and "365" can be found on my new playlist at YouTube called Tim McMullen's Love Songs. It includes several of my annual anniversary songs, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JojYzRrvmwM

Honoring Two Musical Giants on the Anniversary of a Tragedy

Today marks the 36^th anniversary of the loss of two musical giants, Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen, in a tragic plane crash. I wrote this on the guest page of the marvelous site created by Maury’s sister, Mary Nowak, at http://www.maurymuehleisen.com

Dear Mary,

Your wonderful dedication to your brother's life and talent has allowed so many—family, friends, fans old and new—to share an inkling of what a remarkable musician and person Maury was. Maury and Jim are famous not because of their fate, but because of the incalculable contributions they made to the hearts and minds of millions through their unique music.

This day is the anniversary of a tragedy, a sad reminder that very bad things happen to very good people, but it is also a reminder of how fleeting life is for all of us and that the way we live our lives makes a difference in this world. Jim and Maury's friendship, collaboration, musical vision, and legacy set a high standard for lives lasting three times as long. Today is a day to inspire us to have our mark in the world, however modest or grand, be a positive force in the world.

Thanks, Mary, for your love and dedication; thanks to the many who visit this site and share their love and admiration; and thanks, especially, to Maury and Jim for the inspiration—Thanks for saying, "I Love You," in a song!

Tim

I will follow this post with several posts about the marvelous Maury Muehleisen.

Inspiration, Cockburn, and Muehleisen—A Blog Comment to Craig Bickhardt's Ninety-Mile Wind

Craig Bickhardt is a great writer. He spent many years in Nashville as a highly successful songwriter, having placed songs with scores of top performers including Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, David Wilcox, Poco, Baillie and the Boys, The Judds, Nicolette Larson, ad infinitum. A few years ago he gave up the Nashville gig, went back to Pennsylvania, and began performing full time. He writes a great blog for songwriters (and anyone else interested in the art of creation or the creation of art). It is called Ninety-Mile Wind (http://ninetymilewind.blogspot.com/) You can use the link on "My Blog List" on the lower right hand corner of this site.

I often feel compelled to comment on his insightful and inspiring pieces. This is a response that I wrote to his blog post entitled, "All the Spells." If you want to see the full context for the following remarks, check out Craig's blog first. Otherwise, check it out later, but by all means, check it out!


Craig—
Emerson and Thoreau linked inspiration, instinct, conscience—all things transcendental. In a sense, that is part of your point. If we make our constructs too rational, too conscious, they tend to become mechanical. On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult to maintain that spark of inspiration throughout the creation of a completed song.

When working with young writers, I often encounter two warring impulses. On the one hand, it is hard for many beginners to get started. On the first day of class, I write only one short imperative sentence on the board: Stifle the critic! We discuss the possible meanings and implications of that statement for about twenty minutes, then we begin to write.

On the other hand, once they do get going, it is sometimes difficult to get them to revise or hone their work because they have a reverence for their "inspiration." "That's the way it came out of me!" I do understand the impulse; however, not meaning to be crude but needing to be clear, I point out that many things "come out of us," but we don't immortalize them simply because "that's the way it came out."

Holding onto the inspiration or maintaining "the heart" while crafting the exterior shell that effectively conveys it is an unfathomable mystery. The occasional song that simply writes itself, yet is as good as our best work, is an inexplicable miracle. Unfortunately, many a piece that spills out of us is a second or third-rate effort; the spilling itself is no guarantee of authenticity or worth (I mean this in the aesthetic sense, not the monetary one).

Though deeply and inherently cynical and skeptical, I have always been easily moved, and as I grow older, I find that I am more and more susceptible. Watching a movie, listening to a human interest story on the radio, the dénouement of a TV show, and most often, through song, that lump in the throat or the tear in the eye is an alarmingly common and daily occurrence for me. Thirty years ago, I wrote this fragment, “Loosing (or losing) a tear at some other fool’s pain,” that attempts, lightheartedly, to convey that feeling, but I have never taken it upon myself to incorporate it into a song.

When I get a new Nanci Griffith album, for example, I can be fairly sure that by the second song she'll have me in tears, and that it will continue repeatedly throughout the album. The same is true for a handful of writers including Cheryl Wheeler and Jesse Winchester. It's not maudlin; it's not merely melancholy; it's simply that beautiful mix of emotion, melody, poetry, and voice that speaks to the head and the heart simultaneously. Ironically, several of my very favorite songwriters, Danny O'Keefe, Townes Van Zandt, Jackson Browne, Loudon Wainwright, Joni Mitchell, Guy Clark, only occasionally hit that button, but I still connect deeply with their work—not to diminish their melodic creations, but I think, perhaps, I enjoy them more for the sheer force of their amazing wordsmithing.

Funny that you should mention Bruce Cockburn in this regard. I first saw him do a solo acoustic version of a song called, "He Came From the Mountains," on Ian Tyson's show, Nashville North, around 1970 while I was attending Chico State in California. I vowed on the spot that if I could write and perform a song like that I might consider becoming a believer. Some of Jesse Winchester's songs have that same pure, spiritual but non-"religious" quality. Though I wrote several of my very best songs at about the same time, I am afraid that the conversion did not take place.

Look as I might, and I am an avid collector, I could find nothing from Cockburn. Then, in late 1970 on the same day, I found Bruce Cockburn's first album as well as the only solo album by Maury Muehleisen, later to become Jim Croce's musical partner. Maury's songwriting on Gingerbreadd had a profound effect on Croce's own writing. I was blown away by both Cockburn and Muehleisen that day: That combination of musicality and poetry was at the heart of their work.

A few years later, after my own brief foray into full-time performing, I was using Cockburn's album, Sunwheel Dance, with my students: having them listen to his album while I projected the lyrics onto a screen. Since then, the wide-range of his musical forays, whether unmelodic chanting, angry political diatribes, religious affirmations, devout love songs, or whimsical ditties, have always maintained that poetic sensibility.

"If I had a rocket launcher,
Some son-of-a-bitch would die"

may be hard to reconcile with

"In His world we wait
In His hands our fate
Keep on climbing
We shall see His gate
In good time...."

but in the marvelous, creative universe of Bruce Cockburn, they share a very clear aesthetic based on deep and abiding inspiration.

Clearly, Craig, you have been surprisingly successful at finding that mix of heart and head, even in your more "commercial" outings, but I think that your new CD, Brother to the Wind, may have come closest so far to that perfect mix on nearly every tune. Thanks, not only for the thoughtful treatises on the art and the craft of songwriting, but for being such a consistent example of "practicing what you preach."
Tim McMullen
7/9/2009

Music in a Time of War?

Music in a time of War? (a response to the Music: Acoustic Forum) Originally posted March 2, 2007 - Friday

Where to begin? This thread prompted a great number of varying responses and varying tones; many were amusing, thoughtful, and/or provocative; nevertheless, I feel compelled to respond to some of the more glib and cynical posts. The '67 hit list is very telling; however, if you look at any hit list, then or now, as musicians or fans of music, you will realize that most of the best written and most moving songs are not the biggest hits. The music business is designed to discourage originality or complex thought. If you want to have a hit, you'll never write a topical song. You'll write some derivative, imitation of ten other pop songs. Occasionally, someone writes a strikingly original song that has some modest success. But, if your goal is commercial success, avoid topical songs like the plague. If, on the other hand, you write because you have to, because you have a story to tell, or because you have an idea to convey, or a feeling to share, then the real question is, "Do songs affect people?" The obvious answer is, "Yes, they can." Thankfully, the internet has given writers a way to circumvent the limitations of the "record business."

Some of the analysis of the '60's is accurate. The draft was a significant motivator for opposition to the war; furthermore, the earlier civil rights and free speech movements lent legitimacy to political action used for social change. As for writing the songs off as "preaching to the choir," this is a gross overstatement and misperception. Of all the most significant topical songwriters of the Vietnam era—Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Mark Spoelstra, Buffy Sainte Marie—their topical songs on all topics—environment, race, labor, war—were always a small minority of their full repertoire. This is also true of later topical writers like Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, or Loudon Wainwright.

The point about songs with meaning, whether a love song or a protest song, is that they are always a communication between the writer and the individual listener. The suggestion that "your song didn't stop the war" is actually a silly one. What your song can do is make someone think, feel, respond. If, after hearing your song, a seed of doubt has been planted, or a new perspective has been recognized, or an empathy has been felt, that is a real impact. Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton didn't stop the war, but their inspiration, their example, their witnessing, their arguments, their stories moved and motivated many thousands of people, who, in turn, moved and motivated many thousands of others. Make no mistake, the protest, despite all the effort to stifle it, did alter the course of the war, did directly affect both Johnson and Nixon, and did leave a legacy, no matter how much the revisionist Reaganizing of an alternative historical reality has attempted to lay waste to that legacy.

The most ironic thing about topical songs is that their relevancy should instantly fade; the most tragic thing about the human condition is that the topical song becomes relevant again and again. My song, "Blood Red," which was originally written during Reagan's incursions into Nicaragua, is as relevant to Iraq and Afghanistan as it was to our Latin American invasions or the first "gulf war" (with the exception of the reference to "patriotic yachting crews" which explicitly ties it to Dennis Connor and the America's cup). A performance of the song is included below. Many people today tell me that they are especially moved by that song, and it is a song of open anger and angst, as opposed to what I consider to be even more moving songs like Paxton's tragic, character-driven vignettes like "Jimmy Newman" or "My Son John."

The suggestion that, in the end, Sha Na Na is more significant than Country Joe because the rock and roll pastiche makes you feel better than the song that makes you think, seems to offer some fairly skewed values, or at best, an explanation as to why the general masses have not called for impeachment of a proven liar whose failed policies have killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks. In the end, music can communicate on many levels: both butt music and brain music, gut music and pain music; all have their place. But few uses of music, or literature of any kind, are more valid than those which challenge, provoke, or change us.

The Greatest threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!