Some songwriters are pragmatic in their approach, and believe that you can only really write lyrics after you’ve got the music down, or vice versa. I find that sort of limitation creativity-curbing, in that it forces you to have a completed structure before the idea of the song can emerge. Though I don’t necessarily subscribe to one linear method of writing songs, I do find that writing lyrics as you go seems to give you more flexibility to change arrangements of song structure and add new parts easily if a lyric demands.

Mainly I try to do some kind of musical decoupage in which I am constantly writing down lyric ideas, recording ideas for melodies and chord progressions as I move about my life (which has been made MUCH easier in recent months by using my the Evernote app for iPhone) and then compiling those little scraps into a workable song at some later date. That being said, sometimes I will have heard a song in a dream and I use that as a kernel. I have a sinking feeling that it’s my subconscious disassembling and mixing together bits of other music I’ve heard in my waking life. But let’s not get too Inception-ey here.

Refining a song after the initial thoughts are put down is probably one of the hardest parts of songwriting for me. It forces me to come out of my own shell and bounce my innermost thoughts and feelings, in song form, off of other people I collaborate with. I sometimes feel anxious or downright silly discussing the circumstances under which an idea came together, or trying to articulate the theme of a song to someone. This is especially true when I know it’s been put together from pieces of five different puzzles, if you know what I mean.

Lyrics always seem to start as a stream-of-consciousness. Writing for me involves less planning and more just writing whatever comes out when I hear the music. Sometimes full songs have been written this way and not been touched after.

What I end up with is a sort of half-remembered dream, that only makes sense after a couple weeks of playing it over and over again, when finally the words start to build meaning when the context in which they were written becomes clear.It’s like I have to detach myself from the fact that I put those words on paper (or screen) and look at them as objectively as possible, and then the theme sifts itself from the sand.

Of course that doesn’t always pan out. Sometimes I will set out to write about something specific and it takes a long time for a solid set of lyrics that fits into a rhythmic pattern, phrases right and works thematically.

Ultimately, writing a song is different every time, which is what makes it such a rewarding pastime. In the case of the song I was working on today with Keith, there’s a very specific line of events that brought me to the almost-finished product I have today. They are as follows:

• I heard about Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show on Kevin Smith’s Podcast, SModcast.
• After becoming a regular viewer of Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, I dove into the archives and found a great interview with Billy West and John DiMaggio, the voices of Fry and Bender on Futurama.
• Billy describes in the interview some techniques he uses for creating the unique voices of Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Zoidberg and other non-Futurama characters, including Popeye. West also mentions this in an interview I read about on Boing Boing, one of my favourite blogs. He said the inspiration for the Popeye voice came to him after he watched Genghis Blues, a documentary about the late blind bluesman Paul Pena, who traveled to Tuva to compete in a Tuvan throat singing competition.
• I subsequently found and watched Genghis Blues and was inspired by Paul’s soulful songs, in particular the song Gonna Move (he also wrote Jet Airliner, which would go on to be a major hit for the Steve Miller Band in the 70s).

Then I started trying to put my own spin on that same joyful sound I heard on Gonna Move. And out came my song.

Noting this inspiration reminds me of another similar story. I once e-mailed I Mother Earth, one of my favourite bands as a teenager (and to this day) to ask them a question about the meaning of a song. I was asking about Good For Sule, which appears on their third (first post-Edwin) album, Blue Green Orange. It has a worldly quality to it, which had me imagining it was about the Lion King. In his reply, Tanna said it’s actually about an American professor named Sule who was torn between two worlds – the African village of which he was supposed next ruler, and the life he’d built for himself and his family in the US. Tanna said he had seen a documentary on television about Sule’s choice to either go to Africa and rule the tribe that his ancestors came from, or stay in the US. An inspiring story, apparently.

And now, you have a bit on the creative process for me. What inspires you?

My new band / side project / whatever is off to a great start. I’m in full writing mode now trying to come up with enough material for a full set of music and dog willing, an album. We had our first rehearsal last night and good vibes were flowing around everywhere, along with some tasty fretless bass lines from Colin, some sweet organ sounds from Mike and solid grooves from Don.

Anyway here’s my second entry for the as-yet-unnamed new project, a song I’ve been kicking around for a while called What If I’m Wrong. You can hear the first song, called The Flood, right here.

And what the hell, here’s a link to download it: Download What If I’m Wrong (right click and Save As..)

Keep reading/listening for more!

Last night I met with my buddy Colin to go over a couple new song ideas. After he left I put down this rough idea for a new song called The Flood. I think the inspiration came from listening to a record by legendary blind bluesman Paul Pena.

Click here to download my demo “The Flood” (right click and Save As…)

My first admission, before I get on with what I intend on saying – this is a straight rip of my girlfriend’s post of the same topic.

Now that that’s out of the way and I won’t get slammed for stealing precious intellectual property, I have a few things to say to my unborn child.

Stephen Hawking has just announced that time travel is possible. With that in mind, even though I don’t have a large hadron collider and a rocket ship faster than the speed of light, I’d still like to imagine I can visit you 20 years down the road and ask you all the things you wish I would have done differently. My hope is that you’ll love me dearly and tell me you don’t regret one moment of being my son/daughter.

In reality, you’ll probably tell me you really wish I’d bought you that computer/phone/apple gadget you wanted so badly when you were 16. I’d like to think I will teach you not to place such value on material things, but I know I like shiny things with buttons and touch screens and such, so how could I deny you of the same wants?

Here’s a few things I promise to do with you as you grow up. I’ll keep it bulleted, cause I know how kids these days hate reading.

• Take you to your first, seventh and twenty-third concert. Rock, folk, indie, funk, soul … we’ll vary it up. Just no emo/screamo/justin bieber. for the love of all that is sacred. no justin bieber.
• Let you beat around my old guitars. Get a ukulele / mandolin / schroeder’s piano from peanuts in your hands at age 5. maybe sooner, if your mom allows it in between all the books she’ll have you reading.
• Talk to you like a human being (in addition to all the gibberish baby talk).
• Teach you to sing (and harmonize with your dad). Remember it comes from your diaphragm, not your throat! Unless you’re Ray LaMontagne. Then it comes from that cloud of smoke inside your lungs that you never exhaled. On that note, don’t even think about being a smoker.
• Read to you. You’re going to get literature totally crammed down your throat by your mother, but I want some input, too. I’m going to read you cool shit like The Age of Spiritual Machines, High Fidelity and when you’re ready, 1984, For Whom The Bell Tolls and Fight Club. I’ll leave the ones about kids with magic sticks, rings and hats to your mom.

That’s all for now … you’re going to get such an amazing cultural education at home, that I can promise you. Oh, and before I forget, we’re going to love the absolute shit out of you.

Sincerely, your dad.

I tried my hand at covering Imagine by John Lennon last night, using only GarageBand and my MacBook’s built-in microphone. The quality is surprisingly good, aside from a few spurts of distortion near the end where I (unfortunately) did not practice proper mic technique whilst belting out the final chorus. Have a listen for yourself, I think I’m going to give recording it another go some time with all my proper equipment set up.

Imagine

I decided to do a simple live recording of my acoustic version of “Control”. I changed up the chord progression since we (Broken Halo) put it on our latest release, the Stars Align EP. Listen and let me know what you think. I’ll be posting more new material soon.

Control (Acoustic) by Doug McArthur

I recently spent the week traveling around Saskatchewan for business – I hit up Saskatoon, Watrous, Regina, Yorkton and Melville over four days and saw clients large and small. I trek west for work every couple of months and every time I leave Winnipeg I am reminded of how much I love my dear home town.

Don’t get me wrong, there are interesting things about places in Saskatchewan. Saskatoon has a decent music scene, but not nearly as good as Winnipeg. Watrous’ claim to fame is both the Manitou Springs Mineral Spa and the fact that it was selected as a location for TSN’s Sportscentre broadcast in August 2009.

As I tweeted about on Thursday, I was mighty disappointed with the music scene on a Thursday night in Regina. I want to go into a bit more detail than 140 characters will allow.

It was Thursday night and I had just finished a long day of client visits. None of my Regina coworkers were up to anything but I had a rental car and some free time, so I decided to check out what was going on downtown. I hit up a sushi place first and then popped next door to a pub called O’Hanlon’s to see what was going on. I took a little tour around the pub, which looked really nice. High ceilings, just the right amount of Guinness and Keith’s ads (and mirrors) on the walls. So I go up to the barkeep, a nondescript looking chap wearing plaid, as cool kids do, and asked him if there was to be a band at the pub that night. No, but a DJ is spinning tonight. Okay, no thanks, unless it’s RJD2, Kid Koala or Girl Talk, I’ll pass.

So I ask him if there are any other venues around with live music tonight. His reply? “No, not on a Thursday.”

Not on a Thursday? Maybe Winnipeg has spoiled me, but I expect there to be live music happening somewhere pretty much every night of the week. Especially Thursday through Sunday. That’s a given, isn’t it?

I implore you, people of Regina – either do a better job of promoting your music, if in fact there is music happening that said bartender is unaware of, or just make it happen. That’s all. Have a lovely weekend.

I’m loving the current sunny weather in Winnipeg, and as such it has inspired me to make a happy summer mix, comprised entirely of songs that are like a musical ear-to-ear smile. What are the songs that make you the happiest when you hear them? Here’s some obvious choices I’ve got so far:

1. Martin Sexton – Happy (from Seeds) [bonus - here's a making of Happy video from Martin in the studio]
2. Ron Sexsmith – Happiness (from Retriever)
3. Rufus Wainwright – California (from Poses)
4. Amos Lee – Bottom of the Barrel (from Amos Lee)
5. Jenny Lewis featuring Elvis Costello – Carpetbaggers (from Acid Tongue)

And now it’s your turn to help me out … input, please!