[WARNING: This will be a longish blog, because I’m including some quotes and snips that I think are important … if you hate long blogs, and don’t have time to read this one, I will completely understand.]

I have never had any luck writing music, but I have always enjoyed writing lyrics. I think it’s because I admire really, really good ones, lyrics that take the power of the music and direct it right into your heart, lyrics that communicate, words that could stand alone if they had to, but are enhanced and reinforced by the music, and vice-versa.

As the great Harry Chapin once said, through a character in his song, “Stranger With the Melodies”, “A song ain’t got much meaning if it ain’t got nothin’ to say!”

I mention this because I’ve heard both ends of the lyrical spectrum in the last couple of days. I heard a song by local Atlanta artist Shawn Mullins this morning called “Twin Rocks, Oregon.” It’s part spoken, part sung, but awfully engaging, I thought. Here’s the first verse and chorus:

I met him on the cliffs of Twin Rocks, Oregon.
He was sittin on his bedroll looking just like Richard Brautigan.
I thought he was an old man, he wasn’t but 37.
He said he’d been ridin’ trains for 15 years, drawing portraits to keep his belly full of beer.
It looked to me like he’d died and missed the plane to heaven.
But he was a nice ol’ guy for a younger man. He had a bottle of Mad Dog he held in his hand
That he waved around a lot to make his point.
And I listened as he told his tales of wine and women and county jails,
And we finished off that bottle and smoked a half a joint.

He said “I came here to watch the sun disappear into the ocean,
‘Cause it’s been years since I smelled this salty sea.”
He turned his bottle up and down,
And I saw him lost, and I saw him found.
He said “I don’t know what I’ve been lookin’ for.
Maybe me.”

A colleague also passed some Tori Amos music along to me. I’d only really been familiar with one or two of her songs, “Silent All These Years” being the one I liked most. Now I’ve heard three albums’ worth of her music, and it’s been a real awakening. I think I’ve decided that I really, really like her music, but her lyrics puzzle me. The thoughts and ideas are so disconnected, they seem almost random. An example from “Little Earthquakes”:

Yellow bird flying gets shot in the wing
Good year for hunters and Christmas parties
And I hate and I hate and I hate
And I hate elevator music
The way we fight
The way I’m left here silent
Oh these little earthquakes
Here we go again
These little earthquakes
Doesn’t take much to rip us into pieces
We danced in graveyards with vampires till dawn
We laughed in the faces of king never afraid to burn
and I hate and I hate and I hate
and I hate disintegration

These lyrics clearly have deep meaning for Tori, and probably for those who understand her and her style better than I, but to me they’re more of a texture. They don’t add meaning; it’s as though her voice and her words are being used as just another instrument in the mix.

Without music, lyrics are basically just poetry with a bit more structure and repetition. So, being musically handicapped, I write a lot of poetry, not that I would go so far as to call myself a poet. One kind soul recently offered to have a go at some of my lyrics, setting them to music, and one of these days I’ll go through the things I’ve written and find some that are fit for such. It’ll be a pleasant thing to hear my lyrics sung again.

Once, while I lived in Florida, some friends and I met a singer named Meta (MAY-tah) Scholan. She was about seventeen, a breathtakingly pretty girl with long blonde hair, brilliant stage presence, and a voice that would make Britney Spears hang her head in shame. We all thought she was an amazing talent, and together we wrote, arranged, produced and recorded a demo for her. My friend Trina Harmon wrote most of the music. She’s a brilliant songwriter and has since gone on to write songs for Eden’s Crush, Jessica Simpson, Nick Lachey, and Jennifer Paige. Most of the arranging was done by John Marsden, another talented guy who’s still working in the music industry. All of us collaborated on lyrics, and I engineered and mixed. Just as we were finishing the project, I had to leave for Atlanta and I lost touch with everyone, which is a shame. That was some of the most enjoyable time I’ve ever spent in a studio.

I have one last word about lyrics. Sometimes, the very fact that there ARE lyrics is a message in itself.

Chet Atkins was one of the finest guitar players on this planet, and I think few people would dispute that. Every guitarist in the world has probably spent at least two or three hours trying to steal one of Chet’s licks, because he made the instrument sing in a unique way that was his trademark. This is why he’s been described as “Mister Guitar” and is world-renowned for his skill and innovation as a producer, a record company executive, and a songwriter as well as the most-recorded solo instrumental artist in history. Chet, however, simply could not sing. In fact, the man was so shy, so soft-spoken that he could hardly talk. His hit songs are all instrumentals. He hasn’t really recorded a vocal since the 1950s, except for one song–one song that was important enough that it had to be sung, and he had to sing it.

Around 1988, Chet wrote a song about his father. It’s a nice song, but being about his Dad, it needed lyrics. He wrote them. In the first of what would become dozens of live performances, he stood on stage with only a guitar and a microphone, wearing a hat, and introduced the song by saying, “Every time I look in the mirror, I see my Dad. I guess that’s why this song means so much to me.” He then played the song and sang it, in a shaky, unsteady voice that everyone knew was the real Chet, and not one person noticed that he was no singer. They didn’t hear that the lyrics were a little disjointed, a little choppy. They just heard something so real and so deeply personal and honest that it was breathtaking. These are the lyrics he sang.

When I was young, my Dad would say,
“Come on Son let’s go out and play!”
Sometimes it seems like yesterday.

And I’d climb up the closet shelf
When I was all by myself,
Grab his hat and fix the brim,
Pretending I was him.

No matter how hard I try,
No matter how many tears I cry,
No matter how many years go by,
I still can’t say goodbye.

He always took care of Mom and me.
We all cut down a Christmas tree.
He always had some time for me.

Wind blows through the trees,
Street lights, they still shine bright.
Most things are the same,
but I miss my Dad tonight.

I walked by a Salvation Army store,
Saw a hat like my daddy wore,
Tried it on when I walked in.
Still trying to be like him.

No matter how hard I try,
No matter how many years go by,
No matter how many tears I cry,
I still can’t say goodbye.

If you can listen to that recording with a dry eye, you are a better man than I am, because I can’t. Chet’s not with us any longer; he passed away in 2001. His memorial service was held in the most fitting place imaginable: the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Chet once said in an interview, “Years from now, after I’m gone, someone will listen to what I’ve done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they’ll hear my guitars speaking for me.”

And your words, Chet.