Monday, November 27, 2017

Writing A Blog In Lieu Of This Song

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
- Aldous Huxley


Hey stranger. Long time no see. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.

NOPE.

I have procrastination to do, and I will get word count while I do it. Blogs totally count for NaNoWriMo total when I'm not even writing a novel. I already wrote the novel. Feel free to ask me about it.

Also I feel a burning desire to share music with you. You could probably tell that from my last series. Whiiiich I never actually finished. I edited that last post there to finish the alphabet, you can go check it out if you care.

Intro over, it's time for a new post. A lot of what I have strong feelings on involves music, and I will readily tell anyone that I can (and do) assign a fictional character to literally every song I like. This is how I write. If there's no music involved, there's no story. So I thought I would share some songs I've collected that have to do with writing.

This list is partially for the benefit of my writer friends, since I have many. Some of these songs can be very inspiring when you find yourself in a rut. Or they can at least show you that tons of other writers in the world feel just as stumped as you do. However, this list can also be enjoyed by the non-writer who is crazy enough to read all the way through it.

"I'll be twice as good as that, six months from... never."
-Watch What Happens

There are some obvious songs about writing that I didn't feel the need to address. Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield, Non-Stop from Hamilton, Watch What Happens from Newsies. (Yeah, I used my version. So sue me.) These are completely about writing or talk extensively about it. Incredibly inspiring, but most of you have heard those before. Hurricane from Hamilton also addresses the topic some more and some of the ways that the words in your head that you're trying to get on paper can get out of hand. I've definitely experienced that.

The rest of these songs will be organized by artist. I managed to find several from each artist, and I can say with confidence that I would recommend any of these bands as writing music if you happen to be someone who can write while listening to music with lyrics. (If not, I also have instrumental recommendations for you. Please ask me.)

Twenty Øne Pilots

I do not have writer's block,
My writer just hates the clock

My pick for writing songs from TØP would have to be Ode To Sleep and Migraine. I relate to many of Tyler Joseph's lyrics about how his brain works. It's hardly just these two songs, it's basically every TØP song that I've properly listened to. The brain, especially when you're writing, can just be such an exciting and dangerous place. You want to get all your ideas out, but you also don't want to spend too much time alone with them. Really. But TØP also has the right sort of music for writing in my opinion. Ode To Sleep especially has the slightly electronic sound that I think works best as background music, plus their songs tend to be long, which means you don't have to go find a new song on YouTube too quickly.

Take this weapon forged in darkness,
Some see a pen, I see a harpoon.

Bastille


Oh I feel overjoyed
When you listen to my words
I see them sinking in
Oh I see them crawling underneath your skin

Speaking of people who are on the same wavelength as me, Bastille was my best discovery of this year. The last time I bought more Bastille songs I listened to three in a row and went "ARE YOU READING MY MIND??" This is true for many themes, but Dan Smith's take on writing is always on point. I'd say this is most prominent in the song Poet. I didn't even bother taking a quote, I could quote literally the entire song and it would be relevant. It gets across the point that some things just need to be written down, both so you as the writer can keep them "forever", but also so other people can experience them.

Oh they told me nothing new,
But I love to read the words you used

I wrote several essays about this, and I think I even shared one as a blog post. While it has been incredibly important for me to find my own voice and learn how to write the things that are in my head, that's not the only reason writing is so important to me. Having friends who also write lets me get to know them in a way that I don't get from just every day interaction.

It is not enough to be dumbstruck
Can you fill this silence?
You must have the words in that head of yours

Waterparks

I don't wanna talk about it
I don't wanna think about it
Because the last time that
I had these thoughts
I just kept going on about it

Let's be real, writing isn't all fun and games. But this band certainly sounds like they are. Shout out to a certain other writer for getting me addicted to this punk rock boyband. They're a bit of the odd one out on this list because I can only find the one instance when they directly talk about writing. But there are several songs that came to mind on the topic anyway. Sometimes, even for the extroverted writer, things just won't come out in speech. People close to me have heard more times than they can count "I explain things better over text." There's definitely something much safer about having time to think over what you're saying and rephrase as many times as you want rather than stammering over your words. In most human interaction I'll admit that face to face conversations are important, but I appreciate the times (like now) when I can take my time and explain the way I actually think rather than the way I sound.

I can't even count the times
I settled for these scribbled lines
Tell me won't you
Stay awake, stay awake for me

FM Static

What will it be like, will it all go down?
Everyday I'm gonna write this down
Right here in my diary

With all this talk of needing to get my thoughts on paper, you'd think I'd be the type to have a diary. NOPE. I've managed to keep a diary for cumulatively about a year of my life, and that wasn't consecutive. I've never been able to convince myself to write for that long purely for my own benefit. Nothing against people who do journal. I owe a lot to a certain expert journal-er friend of mine for keeping track of my life for me. But writing does take a fair amount of effort for me, and I'd rather have something I can show other people.

I want to say, what I want to say,
And hope no fear gets in the way.

That said, FM Static's album "Dear Diary" is one of the best albums ever created. Unsurprisingly, there are many songs that relate to writing. The main character of this concept album works on his life's problems (and since he's in high school, he has many) in the pages of his diary. Trevor McNevan, my second favorite lyricist of all time, did an excellent job making these songs relatable to literally everyone in some way. But there's definitely an underlying theme of needing to leave a mark on the world, and there's a lot of us who decide to do that by writing.

I don't care if it comes out perfect, 
As long as I can spit it out

(It should be note that "Breaking Me Again" is not on Dear Diary but I don't care. I love it anyway.)

Brave Saint Saturn/Five Iron Frenzy


Let's move on to my favorite lyricist of all time.

Real change doesn't come from a mandate
Real love you cannot legislate

If you haven't figured out by now from my blog title, URL, and several past blog posts, I have a deep appreciation for Reese Roper. Every time he brings up writing or creating in his lyrics, it's an acknowledgment that words can have so much power. Analyzing the lyrics for both bands is inspiring to me to be careful in what you say, but not to pull punches.

I'm afraid that if I write this song,
She might break my heart in two.

At the same time, Roper has written some of the more relatable lyrics about the struggles of writing. "Plan B" is about giving up and procrastinating in general and let me tell you, the plan B often seemed pretty tempting during college. ("Think I found my calling now, laying down in the yard.") "Superpowers" acknowledges that Roper himself was notorious for this, and for forgetting his own lyrics. ("Sometimes we have a deadline for writing these songs. Five minutes left to write this one... la, la la, la la, la la la.")

Relient K


And sometimes I say things that
I wish that I could take back
The most crucial thing I lack is the thing called "tact"

In general, I think we can all agree that I'm a lot better at not pulling punches than I am about being careful. This is definitely another reason I prefer to write, because I can more easily catch those things that wouldn't even occur to me as tactless.

So rather than imply
Why don't you just verbalize
All the things that you're trying to say?

But Matt Thiessen of Relient K did an excellent job of writing about both sides of it. I'd rather over-explain, over-analyze, and over-apologize rather than not tell someone something that could make a positive difference in their lives.

Thankfully, I know where to go for advice on which things fall into the category of necessary information and which are better left unsaid...
I lay my life before you, and I'm not getting up.
Father, how I adore you,
Those words are not enough.

Yellowcard

... the strength I know
It's somewhere in my bones
To pull the curtain up again and get on with this show
At least you know that I still care enough to write

Honestly, I couldn't do a post about writing and music and not bring up Yellowcard. They're literally the reason my novel exists. Somehow. I don't understand it. That would take a much longer time to explain.

I'm finding my own words, my own little stage
my own epic drama, my own scripted page
I'll send you the rough draft, I'll seal it with tears
Maybe you'll read it and I'll reappear

But I think Yellowcard really gets at the heart of a burning need to write. Whether it's in reference to songwriting, or the need to keep writing even after a breakup or a big life change, those lyrics always stand out to me, even in songs I wouldn't particularly like otherwise.

For me it's more than that. It's been such an interesting journey, going from a teenager who had so many stories but was convinced that I would never be able to write it in a way that sounded good, to having now finished writing that novel I was planning 10 years ago. But between the hard work, the things that worked that shouldn't have, the things that have been put in my way as inspiration, I see a different picture. I do believe that I'm meant to keep writing, whether I ever get published or not. Maybe I don't even always need an audience either, despite my dislike of journaling. But I've seen things God has already done with my silly little stories, and as long as he lets me keep getting my thoughts out on paper, I'll keep seeing if I can do any good with them.

'Cause I still remember the reasons I write
Things that I've dreamed for so long


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