IndieSongwriter.net

Another post 50/90 interview. This one is with Meg who has a website here.

1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?

My system was pretty simple: work, work, work. I took any and every experience I possibly could and turned it into lyrics during every spare moment – some of my best ideas happened during my time in the hospital for iron transfusions. That illness actually helped me a lot – I couldn’t work at a summer job, so I had a lot of spare time, and plenty of anguish to work with. While one can definitely write songs while happy, the angsty songs are the ones that come easiest, in my experience.

It all went downhill after I’d been hanging around Chat Hypnopaedia too long and started spending a lot of time chatting with all the wonderful 50/90 folks there, but I don’t regret it for a second. I ended up with 110 songs and a pile of great new friends from around the world.

2. Which song did you consider your biggest success? Why was it successful?

My biggest success was definitely “Pants”. It was written fairly early on in the game, while in a hospital waiting room, but the concept had been banging around in my head for about two months by that point.

Download Pants

It’s basically a message to all the guys, creepy or otherwise, who won’t take “no” for an answer. If a girl says she wants to be just friends, just be her friend and be happy you can share in her company. Don’t try to “win her over” or flirt with her. If that was what she wanted, she’d have asked for it.
I’d had all those thoughts for a while, thanks to so many repeats of this going on in my life, but every time I tried to write a song to express them, it would all get muddled and come out sounding just plain bitchy. Because songs tend to come out really quickly for me, I was convinced I’d be stuck with this great idea but only crappy songs. And then one day, BAM! I created something that was fun, and funny, but still sassy enough to get my point across.

I was also really proud of it because it was one of the first songs I recorded, if not THE first, and the first using my ukelele. It’s a bit distorted in parts, but I’m pretty impressed with myself considering how lo-fi of a demo it was, and the fact that I only played one chord over and over and despite all that, it still sounds decent.

I’m fond of some other songs, too. “Far too Far” was really difficult to write, but I’m so proud of the lyrics. Billy Sea recorded this and did a beautiful job with it. “Tiresome” was a collaboration with my dear friend somos (he played guitar and wrote the melody, I provided the lyrics and vocals). It was the first song I ever mixed, plus the lyrics are really interesting to me. “Dear Doctor” was the most successful of my experiments with vocal samples and premade loops on GarageBand. “Porcelain Garden” – I’m so fond of the title metaphor. I’d really like to record this someday. “Villain” got an amazing demo courtesy of Hoopshank, Dan Wallbank, and Marie Marzzarella, who does a fantastic job of belting out the lyrics. I could go on… there’s a few more that I quite like.

3. Music or lyrics?

I love them both. I feel like I’m a pretty good lyricist, but not much of a musician. I really envy musicians, because I feel like lyrics are so much easier. Anybody can write words, but playing a guitar well takes some serious skill and dedication. Lyrics are something that you can just spew out but music takes years to perfect. That image of striving to be better really strikes a chord with me. There’s only so much you can do to make your lyrics better, but that’s all abstract. Music is concrete: learn new chords or a different technique or a new instrument.

4. Are there any songwriting clichés, musical or lyrical, that you use too much?

Well, there’s my bad habit of using only a handful of chords, just with different strum patterns. I’m not advanced enough for fingerpicking yet.
As for lyrics, there’s a certain phrase I’ve used a few times, but I can’t think of what it is offhand. I hate re-using rhymes, but I do it, because I try to use pure rhymes most of the time, though I’m been moving away from that habit.

5. How have you developed as a songwriter through this challenge?

I’ve only been writing songs since May, so nearly all of my songwriting development has taken place during 50/90.

I learned how to carve out time to write songs and to really express myself through song. I’ve learned that a rhyme doesn’t have to be pure to be valid – “time” and “wine” are close enough – because sometimes the story is more important.

I’ve also tried to do things that don’t rhyme at all and things that don’t always have conventional structure. I started off with a lot of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus stuff, but now I’ve done songs that are one big verse, or several verses and maybe two choruses or a bridge, or songs where the chorus only shows up once.

The biggest development, though, would be my change from just a lyricist into an aspiring musician and okay singer. I’m glad I did some a capella stuff, because it taught me a lot, but I’m even gladder I’ve picked up the ukelele and the guitar. I can blame my fellow musicians for that one – they were all very encouraging when I started talking about getting into recording and into playing instruments. I have a lot to thank the 50/90 community for – probably more than I could ever say.