Quote:
Originally posted by Mike Dixon:
I would ask him this ....
What lyrics proved the most elusive to capture in terms of the intent of the moment ... and which flowed seamlessly and seemingly with little effort.
.... and when the creative need strikes, does he commit it to scraps of paper with a need to review, or does he stay with it until it's either done or discarded ...
Lastly, has he ever started a ballad and never been totally satsified to the point that it's not met his expectations ... and why ....
Mike
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He touched a bit on this in the Larry Wayne Clark interview:
You used an interesting turn of phrase, “I had it turned on,” as if referring to a kind of songwriting radar, or what a lot of people call “being in the zone.” Do songs ever come to you really fast, with no effort?
Yeah, and you wonder just how the hell you did it. All of a sudden, there’s the song. I can remember that with a song called “I’m Not Sayin’” probably it goes back so far I don’t know if anybody remembers that one. That’s one of those two-minute songs.
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Let’s talk about your actual writing techniques and habits. Do you write with the guitar?
Yes. I take the guitar and I work on stuff, say, while I’m watching a game on TV. And if I get something I’ll throw it down real quick onto my little recording machine, which is just a basic cassette machine with a counter. I store ideas that way and [later] I refer back to the tape. And then at some point I make [an index] sheet so I can find stuff. So what I have is a whole procession of ideas about 10 seconds long maximum. I keep ’em short ’cause it doesn’t take much just to start.
Do words and music tend to come together?
It gets tougher to try and think of how the words should go but, by mouthing [syllables] with the music, I can sometimes come up with something. I get a lot of ideas too when I’m driving, or even in the shower.
Those are two places where a lot of songwriters claim to get inspired — on the road and in the shower. Some say they get ideas mowing the lawn. It almost seems like the white noise inherent to those activities is somehow beneficial.
Well, let me join the crowd! [Laughing.]
Have you traditionally waited until you were coming up to record an album before thinking, “I better get busy and start harvesting these ideas” — is that how you go about it?
Yeah, I’ve been in that spot several times and felt something snap inside myself that tells me it’s time to get to work. I was working on a movie a long time ago way out in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island [note: Lightfoot played a role in the film Harry Tracy, Desperado] and was in a store buying a shirt and I said, “working on this movie’s not for me, I’ve gotta get home and write some songs!” The same thing would happen when I’d be on a canoe trip, trying to paddle a canoe 20 miles a day, after about 18 days sometimes you think, “God, it’d be an awful lot easier to be home writing songs.”
When you do get into the writing do you tend to do it in a binge-like way and spend long hours at it?
I used to do it that way during the stretch when I was single, which lasted about 19 years. I had a long period of time between marriages; that was the time when I was really able to pour it on and work for long stretches. It’s not like that now; I have two young children. I’ve written two albums since I got married again, and that was 11 years ago. I’m not complaining, it’s cool, but that’s just the way it goes. Family — they need your time and you gotta give it to them.