The Fire In Your Belly!

A couple of months ago I ran out of gas at a stoplight during the noon rush hour.   I was busy, you know, and while I noticed that the tank was getting low, I kind of ignored it -- I had a lot on my mind! 

So, at this stoplight, my car shuddered and died, and I was completely shocked and surprised and thinking the worst – then I looked at the gas gauge.  Ohhh no.

Every time the light turned green, people behind me were honking, and I kept waving them around. A police officer came up to my window and when I told him, “um, I think I’m out of gas,” he said, “you’ve GOT to be kidding me.”

Cars need gas to run.   A fire needs fuel – something to burn – to keep on burning. For me, inspiration works this way too. If your Car of Inspiration is sitting dead at a stoplight,  what are you gonna do? I don’t know what fills your tank, but here are some suggestions:

• Spend time in nature.  It reaches you at the soul level and reopens that dialogue you have with your innermost self. That’s where the good stuff comes from.
• Read a book.  Reading really gets my brain pistons firing. Sometimes I do this in place of working on writing. I don’t like to force it that much. If I don’t have anything happening in the writing department, I give my brain a little vacation.
• Go out and experience the creativity of others: go to a gallery, museum, or go out and hear live music. Relax. Soak it in. it will put the fire back in your belly.
• Grab inspiration as it flies by – it might not stop or come around again. Write down or record those little lines, words, etc that come into your head at any given moment. Store them up like a little treasure trove that is all yours. Then go back to it when you need some inspiration. You’ll be surprised at some of the things you came up with.  You will inspire yourself!
• Take on a side project that is creative, but not directly related to your main goal: co-write, collaborate, assist, support someone else’s dream. It keeps your creativity flowing until you’re ready to jump back into it again.
• Honor your creative side. Think of yourself as a creative soul, and give this part of yourself its due. This is who you are! This is the real you – the most important you. So give yourself permission to be that person.

Paul Simon and the Rest of Us

Is Paul Simon an asshole? Is Paul Simon a thief who stole from Los Lobos (among others)? Are we all thieves and potentially assholes? A sequence of events has caused me to ponder these questions.  

Let me state for the record that I'm a Paul Simon fan!  And so I was thrilled to see the recent Paul Simon interview in American Songwriter Magazine.  http://www.americansongwriter.com/2011/09/paul-simon-on-songwriting-i-know-what-i-know.  In it, he discussed his process for writing, and it resonated deeply with me.   

As I casually surfed the net for more info on my beloved PS, I stumbled upon an interview in which Steve Berlin, of Los Lobos, claimed that Paul Simon had stolen from them on his Graceland album, AND that he was a huge asshole about it.  http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/04/rhymin-simon-no.html.     

I can’t go around worrying about whether Paul Simon is or is not an asshole.  But if he’s a thief, it saddens me.  In the case of Los Lobos’ contribution – Berlin claims they did not receive a co-write credit for a song they brought to the Graceland project (no lyrics). Everyone would agree that Paul Simon – among others - borrows inspiration from many sources.  At what point is it considered stealing?  Do we all "steal" material?     

Nobody is a creative island, and nobody creates in a vacuum. INFLUENCE by other artists is inevitable and I would say necessary in order to grow.  If I hear a chord progression or a little riff that speaks to me, I might try to incorporate it into a song, but in a way that makes it unrecognizable as anything but mine. And many times we hear the story behind a successful song that goes something like this: the songwriter hears a phrase or expression in conversation that sticks in his brain. He takes it and forms an amazing song from it. That’s not stealing – that’s inspiration driving the creative process.      

That being said, I do take care to try to verify that the lyrics and accompanying melodies I write are my own.  And sometimes that can be tricky, what with all the flotsam and jetsam of information floating around in my brain. How do you know? You do what you can do, I suppose.     

Back to the asshole question:  it could get complicated. I mean, which comes first – the asshole or the crime?