My friend Jeff has been talking about music, and particularly music while writing. Despite the fact that he brought up the scourge of John Denver, I felt compelled to respond.
Truth be told, I haven’t been listening to much music lately.
What? A black guy not espousing the joys of music to write to? What of the jazz, the bump of James Brown? What the funk has the world come to? I jest, but it’s true that I don’t listen to music all the time. Sometimes it distracts me. Sometimes it diverts my attention.
Given all that nonsense, I do believe there are a few musical things in this world that I cannot do without:
- John Coltrane’s saxophone
- Miles Davis’s audacity (i.e., turning his back to audience, etc.)
- The way Sting says “shock??? while playing Police tunes live
- flamenco
- Antonio Carlos Jobim
- Lennon/McCartney
- the funky drummer
- the 12-bit sampler
- All things Muppet
- Mainstream radio from the 1970s and 1980s
As far as what music is good for writing, it changes all the time. I went through a period lately that anything from Erik Satie really set me off into the land of creation, and at the same time I was digging the experience of deep diving into the jazz catalogs of Riverside, Prestige, and Impulse. That’s just one example. One person’s taste.
Music is mutable, maybe more so than literature. If John Denver floats that boat, I’d love to buy a ticket to ride to the other side of the river. Who knows what may come of it?
Comments 3
Oh this is so like you… “Lennon/McCartney”… you know, the rest of us, down here, way down here, we call them The Beatles. I think you did that just to get my goat. Just for that, add additonal years to my “borrowing” of your copy of the white album.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 10:15 pm ¶“I think you did that just to get my goat.”
B-I-N-G-O. B-I-N-G-O. And Bingo was his name-o.
Posted 27 Mar 2008 at 10:58 pm ¶Joni Mitchell.
Says it all.
Posted 03 Apr 2008 at 12:35 pm ¶Post a Comment