GO WITH YOUR GUT
Greetings! Welcome to the debut of a new blog series about the craft and business of songwriting. I'm sharing the wisdom not which I have learned in my thirty years of struggle, but that of some of the most awesome and successful Country songwriters around, culled from interviews which first aired on the American Forces Radio Network in 2011, and which are included in my book, "Nashville Songsmiths." Hope you enjoy and get something out of this - I know I sure did! TH
Greetings! Welcome to the debut of a new blog series about the craft and business of songwriting. I'm sharing the wisdom not which I have learned in my thirty years of struggle, but that of some of the most awesome and successful Country songwriters around, culled from interviews which first aired on the American Forces Radio Network in 2011, and which are included in my book, "Nashville Songsmiths." Hope you enjoy and get something out of this - I know I sure did! TH
Here's Tony Arata (The Dance) on listening to your inner voice, and how well his own instincts paid off!
TA: So in those years the song was continually being pitched and continually being passed on by the biggest and the best in town. But I believed in the song, I thought there was something there, and the reaction it got from the lay-folk…you know…I knew there was something there. Oddly enough, I was told on more than one occasion that nobody was going to record it because it didn’t have a bridge. It’s just verse-chorus, verse-chorus and you’re done. So I tried to write a bridge, and it seemed so foreign to the song, having sung it for so many nights, in its format…I finally just had to say that I don’t think it’s supposed to have one.
TH: Did you ever try doing a bridge with a banjo in it? (laughs)
TA: (laughs) I tell you what, at that time of my life I would’ve tried anything - a bassoon, whatever.
TH: A little ukulele?
TA: (laughs) Whatever you got.
TH: Of course they’re all little. Ukuleles.
TA: (laughs) But it was just one of those things, I finally had to make a decision that I thought I was done with the song and that’s what it was gonna be. Oddly enough, in the years that passed, Garth came up to me and said “You know what I always liked about that song is that there’s no bridge.” And so every once in awhile, you know, idiots like me…every once in awhile you finally come to the right decision and the right conclusion and stick by your guns and go with the song as is.
HERE'S A COOL AUDIO CLIP ABOUT THE DANCE
Next: Rivers Rutherford on overcoming Doubt through Action!
TA: So in those years the song was continually being pitched and continually being passed on by the biggest and the best in town. But I believed in the song, I thought there was something there, and the reaction it got from the lay-folk…you know…I knew there was something there. Oddly enough, I was told on more than one occasion that nobody was going to record it because it didn’t have a bridge. It’s just verse-chorus, verse-chorus and you’re done. So I tried to write a bridge, and it seemed so foreign to the song, having sung it for so many nights, in its format…I finally just had to say that I don’t think it’s supposed to have one.
TH: Did you ever try doing a bridge with a banjo in it? (laughs)
TA: (laughs) I tell you what, at that time of my life I would’ve tried anything - a bassoon, whatever.
TH: A little ukulele?
TA: (laughs) Whatever you got.
TH: Of course they’re all little. Ukuleles.
TA: (laughs) But it was just one of those things, I finally had to make a decision that I thought I was done with the song and that’s what it was gonna be. Oddly enough, in the years that passed, Garth came up to me and said “You know what I always liked about that song is that there’s no bridge.” And so every once in awhile, you know, idiots like me…every once in awhile you finally come to the right decision and the right conclusion and stick by your guns and go with the song as is.
HERE'S A COOL AUDIO CLIP ABOUT THE DANCE
Next: Rivers Rutherford on overcoming Doubt through Action!