A Splendid Sparsity

Up until about 8 years ago, I fancied myself a songwriter.  Until that time, I was pretty happy about the songs I was writing.  They accomplished what I had intended for them to accomplish.

But then I started running into a series of songs that I perceived to be infinitely better than mine.  They were, for one thing, more general than mine.  This allows the listener to imagine that the song is about him.  But it wasn't just that.

As I began to dissect some of these songs, usually in order to learn to sing and play them, they seemed to fall apart in my hands.  When I wrote out the lyrics on a page, there seemed to be almost nothing there.  And yet, when sung, they gave me goose flesh.  They almost made my heart stand still.  I still don't really understand this type of songwriting magic very well.

But I can give you instances of it.  This is Good To See You, from Neil Young.  (I'll feature another song some other day.)

Good to see you
Good to see you again
Good to see your face again
Good to see you

I'm the suitcase in your hallway
I'm the footsteps on your floor
When I'm lookin' down on you
I feel like I know what my life is for

Good to see you
Good to see you again
Good to see your face again
Good to see you

I've been down on the endless highway
I passed on the solid line
Now at last I'm home to you
I feel like making up for lost time

Good to see you
Good to see you again
Good to see your face again
It's good to see you

Behold the economy of words used by Neil there!  My jaw just drops when I look at this.  Look how much room he leaves for the listener to do the work of putting together the story, instead of finishing every corner himself.  Here is just one phrase I love:

I passed on the solid line

Now, if I had written this line, it would have said something like: "I drove home real fast."  But look what he does:  He paints an entire picture of the driver as eager lover, taking the risk of passing when the line on the road tells him not to.  He badly wants to be back home to his beloved.  You can just see his car swerve out around a slow truck, blow past it, and fall back in line.  And Young tells us this, paints this entire scene, in six (6!) words.

And that is why I don't write songs any more.