Keith Richards:  Nobody writes a song.  It visits you and you pay it homage.

Interviewer: You wrote “Satisfaction” in one go, didn’t you?

Keith Richards: Yeah.  That was humbling.

Unfortunately, I do not remember what interview this was from.  I tried to find it on the internet to no avail.  I think it was a Rolling Stone Magazine interview.  This may not be an exact quote but it is very, very close.  The reason I remember it so well is that it runs very contrary to my image of Keith Richards.  Mind you, he came up with “Satisfaction” in a dream.  He gives a very good account of it in an interview on Fresh Air with Teri Gross.   In it, Keith tells of having a cassette recorder by his bed every night in case he came up with an idea.  One night he woke up and found the recorder still on despite the fact that he didn’t remember starting it.  Curious, Keith rewound it to the beginning and was shocked to hear himself in a ghostly voice sing the guitar line, the chorus and one verse. This was followed by the recording of 40 minutes of his snoring.

Similarly, Edward Kaspel of the Legendary Pink Dots has stated in several interviews that he gets his lyrics from his dreams.  “Lisa’s Party” is one example.  Edward keeps a recorder by his bed so he can recount his dreams before the memory slips away.

I do value well thought out lyrics but there is a beauty to just letting it fly.  When it works well, it is usually beyond what you would have thought up if you made a concerted effort.  It is like something I read in John Lennon interview  (too lazy to dig the book out but I will cite it for those of you interested later).  John was recounting a story Yoko had told him.  It went something like this:

There once was this famous Japanese painter in ancient times who was greatly sought out.  One day, a powerful member of royalty found him and asked him to paint a painting for him.  The royal one described it to the painter and paid him a handsome sum in advance.  The painter said, “The painting you described is difficult but possible.  It will take some time.”

The royal one said, “Take your time.  I am in no rush.”  So a year went by.  Three years went by.  Five years went by.  By this time the royal one was furious, thinking that he had been ripped off.  The royal one came to the painter in a fury, “Five years ago I paid you a great sum for a painting and you have not produced it.  I want it now or there will be grave consequences!”

The painter calmly said, “Yes, of course.”  Whipped out his paints, brushes and canvas and within a half hour the painting was completed.  This made the royal one even more furious.

“You made me wait for crap you could have made in a half hour!!!”

“Yes,” the painter calmly replied, “it took me a half hour to paint it but it took me five years to think about it.”

The points of this story are several.  One point is that the artist has to let inspiration breathe.  One needs to consider without overthinking.  What people seem to miss about improv is that a lot goes into it before it happens.  It is not just throwing things out and they magically come together (tons of lousy “jam bands” have proven this).  It is a lifetime of work and preparation along with the right ingredients.  It is about time and place.  It is about emotional space and frame of mind.  Once these things are set something visits, sits down and has a cup of coffee with the artist.  It could be a complete song or just an element, fragment, line or sound.  An example of this was the note that pings throughout Pink Floyd’s “Echoes.”  Rick Wright was playing through a Leslie and this particular note seemed to stand out. Voila!  An important part of a song appears. (read an account of this in Nicholas Schafer’s book Saucerful of Secrets).

The most interesting instance of this phenomena was Syd Barrett’s “Dominoes” (found on his second album Barrett).  David Gilmour recounted the instance on the documentary The Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd Story.  There needed to be a solo at a certain point of the song and Syd Barrett was coming up with nothing useable.  Then Syd had them run the playback in reverse.  While listening to the song backwards Syd played a solo.  After having played the solo, he had them run the song forward making his solo backward.  It turned out perfectly!  When he was on, Syd’s instincts were phenomenal and unexplainable.   When he was off, his output unuseable and equally unexplainable!

I even experienced such moments myself.  My one foray into the (proper) studio as a performer of my own song was the occasion.  My drummer was dismayed because he had to borrow someone else’s kit (he was also pissed off that I had him play at a very brisk tempo for over four minutes at least with a constant ride pattern).  This was made worse by the fact that the ride cymbal was cheap and had a very dead sound.  I don’t know why but I told him to set it upside down.  This provided a surprisingly lively, ringing and splashy sound.  It was perfect for the song and everyone pleasantly surprised by the result.  The funny thing about this decision is that it was a decision.  There was no hesitation on my part.  It was something I felt sure of yet I had never done it before nor had I ever heard of anyone doing it before.  But I knew it was correct.  It surprised everyone.  The result didn’t surprise me.  What I was wondering was not why it worked but where did the idea come from.

It’s one of those things . . . . Going back to Keith Richards and “Satisfaction,” after the song was written he was very much against it being a single because he was not totally convinced that he hadn’t ripped it off.  He played his entire record collection several times before he was convinced that he hadn’t merely copied it.  Only then did he finally relent.  His thought was, “How did that come about?”  Knowing the way he looks at things, I’m sure he didn’t think about it too long.

Thinking, feeling, work, instinct . . . it’s a hard balancing act.