today’s audio is a song i think i am calling “car ride”. i wrote it a few days ago for my weekly writing group. it’s gonna be the subject of the whole essay today, so pardon me while first i digress and set the stage with a little summer check-in.
things have been hairy, too hairy, in the marx-mckeown household. carl is not a fan of the heat wave currently gripping the northeast. why would he be? he is covered in thick fur meant to keep him warm in icy northern waters and deep snows as he retrieves dead animals. poor carl, stuck here in a broiling massachusetts august.
growing up in virginia, the summer air was always humid and thick, pressing down on you like a wet, musty towel any time you stepped outside. with temperatures routinely in the high 90s, everyone had central air. not so much up here in western mass, and i have managed to avoid it in my own home for the nearly 20 years i have lived here.
carl makes it very clear when he is too hot. he yowls in his crate unless a fan is blowing directly on him, and if the temperature is above 75 in the house, he will let me know with symphony of further yowls and yipples and barks. sometimes when he gets too hot, he enters a demonic brain melt-down where in addition to barking his face off, he grabs my shirt and tugs. he grabs my shorts and tugs. he grabs my bun… and tugs.
i am the first to admit, i am not a perfect dog daddy. i’ve made mistakes with carl, missed obvious signs, learned some lessons that were hard on us both. this week, the combination of carl’s embrace of swimming and the heat and humidity resulted in his first hotspots, a bit like jock itch for dogs. too much moisture trapped next to the skin by a thick coat becomes irritating sores. so carl went to the vet, got the painful spots shaved, and i bought a portable AC unit. probably like many of you, i hated the unexpected expense, but i wouldn’t think twice about giving carl what he needs. at least he is not going to college, or if he is, i don’t think i’ll have to pay for it.
so, when i sat down to write this week’s song group entry, i was a touch cranky at the prompt: WE TOOK A DETOUR. as a reminder the rules of our group require you to use the prompt in its exact form, without alteration, but how and where you use it is up to you. i generally try to give myself parameters before starting to write. for example, this week, i didn’t want the prompt to be the first line or the main theme of the song via its use in a chorus, only because i’d done those things for the last several weeks. i like to use these songs to experiment with strange rhyme schemes, odd song forms, and a general no-fucks given approach. the other parameter i give myself is a time limit of one hour, and i often finish before that.
for this song, i decided that whatever the third verse would be, it would have the prompt. so i came up with a melody-less lyric to start with
we took a detour
the road less traveled
what came of this
asphalt unraveled
all that came before
people often ask, “what comes first, the music or the lyrics?” and the answer for me is that they are inseparable. i almost never have one without the other. when the right combo appears, a spark is lit that i can then nurse into a full blown idea. without this synergistic spark, i often struggle to set pre-written text to music. it’s something i’m trying to work on, so i practice it in these weekly songs. it’s also important to note that i often have no idea what a song is going to be about when i start, even with a prompt.
so i started with these initial lyrics, and i mumble-sang them as i tried out a variety of guitar styles underneath - a shimmering open tuning, a little punk pop rhythm. nothing was sparking; the melodies i was sketching out weren’t keeping me interested. i decided to try yet another guitar style, one that i like a lot and use often: a slow, simmering swing guitar vamp. working with a tempo that languid gives me space to imagine and create. if the song is going by too quickly as i am trying to write, i feel handcuffed.
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speaking of, i’m playing a free gig in the catskills this weekend, fireworks included. i’ve got a few other in person shows this fall in massachusetts as i spend the next few months close to home. there are new productions of Miss You Like Hell going up this fall in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California. you can check out all these dates on my website erinmckeown.com/shows.
my most important tool for songwriting is my phone. i have a little drum machine on it that i often program beats on to inspire me. but even more important is the voice memo function. when i am throwing stuff around to see what sticks, i don’t want to remember what i did. so the phone gets turned on and runs and runs as i experiment. then i go back and listen. the poorer the quality, the better. again, i want to give myself space to mishear mumbles or fill in gaps of indiscernible melodic shape.
so i turned on my phone again, this time futzing with some jazz chords in a slow simmer and began to work some more through this starting lyric. without my conscious intention, i sang the phrase “we took a detour” like going up a staircase two steps at a time, with a little flip at the top.
we took a detour
it was very satisfying, so i tried the same melodic flip in every line, to less satisfaction. then i kept noodling on the guitar and improvising. the phone was still recording.
then i don’t know why but i sang
i’ve spent a lifetime
trying to be loud
how about a car ride in silence
and with that, i knew i had discovered the song. this little moment had the melodic flip that i had discovered with the other lyric, but it also had a snark to it that felt just right for my cranky self. it felt like the beginning of a story to me. it had a very clear voice and a very clear ask of the listener. and while it didn’t dictate a strict rhyme scheme, it left open some possibilities for internal rhymes or end rhymes or both. spark lit.
my family wasn’t much for talking on long car rides, so maybe i grew up accustomed to making my own fun in the car and keeping my own company with my thoughts or walkman. i did a lot of backseat reading, backseat napping, or just staring out the window. the silence was a respite, a comforting limbo, space to daydream and let your mind take unpredictable paths or no path at all, like being at the airport early for your flight. and these were the days, long before GPS, when there was no ticking clock on the dashboard to tell you exactly when you’d get to the place you didn’t want to go (yet another civil war battlefield) or you couldn’t wait to get to (summer camp in the shenandoah valley).
these days, i continue to prefer a silent car ride, at least as far as conversation goes. after years of touring, i know how quickly talking in a car wears out my voice. i’ve sat out some wonderful conversations with bandmates in order to be able to sing the show that night.
i know another touring musician who imposes something called “library van” - where you can do whatever you want in the van so long as it would also be kosher in a library. this feels civilized and considerate to me. it helps everyone conserve their energy for that night’s performance. not to mention erases the FOMO that us singers inevitably feel.
back to the song. once i find a satisfying nugget like “i’ve spent a lifetime”, i just try to repeat it as many times as possible with as many variations, working them into a coherent plot. to do this, i move to my next favorite tools for songwriting: a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary. i use very specific paper ones. i know there is all kinds of internet jazz for this sort of thing, but i have found that my huge paper books have more options and deeper rhymes than the websites or apps. it feels like my books think of words as little paintings, as more than an inputs for an algorithm.
so as you can see in the below image from my notebook, i had an idea for the “detour” line later and a good idea for a starting place with “i’ve spent a lifetime”, now all i had to do was fill in what i call the “real estate” in between.
it’s a common form in early jazz and blues to make a B section on what’s called the “IV chord” of a key. so without much thought i just used a pretty standard progression for a B section. remember i am trying to get this done in an hour, not reinvent the wheel. and usually, i make these songs and don’t listen to them again for months, years, or ever.
but by the time i got to my planned last “detour” verse, it seemed like there was more to say, so i reconfigured my initial lyric and kept going. what i thought was the end, ended up as the middle. i love when songs surprise me like that.
in my initial voice memo mumble, i had ended the improvisation with the line
there’s no destination that can get me far enough from you
who knows why i said that? it’s so mean. but that’s what’s fun about songs - you can try out different a persona or say things you’re too polite to say in real life. who can’t relate to “zip it” after a long car ride with a loquacious co-pilot. we all want to say something like this sometimes.
anyway, i decided the zinger should be the last line of the whole song, but i wanted to take my time getting there, to draw out the snark. my trusty rhyming dictionary came in handy for sure. but i ran into a problem…
there’s no destination
no atlas or mapping
no [XXXXX]
that can get me far enough from you
something felt too quick about this, like it was an odd fit. i had to sing “map-ping” to make that line work, thought i didn’t mind that much, but i couldn’t find the right idea for the third line… something else about maps or geography or land or… a geologic feature or… i tried out “cumberland gap-ing”, which is very specific to virginia, so “geologic gapping” which doesn’t make a ton of sense, though the G sound felt right.
using the rhyming dictionary, i squeezed another line in, extending the ramp up to the punchline
there’s no destination
no airport or station
no atlas or mapping
and then while staring at the rhyming dictionary…
i thought of “app” - and eureka! i had it
no atlas or mapping
no GPS apping
that can get me far enough from you
and that was it. the song was done.
any writer will tell you, there is no drug, no intimate act, no feat of accomplishment so satisfying as finding the last perfect puzzle piece to the thing you’re making. it’s always a surprise, a kind of creative blackout instant that you awake from with the right answer in hand. listen, i am not a sondheim person, but he wrote a magnificent song about this very moment and its power over the writer, to the detriment of all reason and thought and relationships, human or canine. look, i made a hat. where there wasn’t a hat before. in less than an hour.
today i made a quick demo of the song for you. spending a little time fucking around with some sounds and having fun playing electric guitar, which i haven’t done in months and months. i am pleased to say that learning the violin has helped my lead guitar playing. carl lay passed out on the studio rug while i worked, finally cool and quiet.
but as i mentioned in my last essay pod, i will not linger over this song. i wrote it an hour. recorded it another hour or so, and now it’s time to move on. the prompt for next week is already in my inbox: THE BUSINESS OF WALTZING.
x erin
don’t itch those hotspots, big boy! it’s just a donut but he’s acting like he’ll never walk again.
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
my neighbor and friend rachel maddow has got herself a good good life. i aspire.
one of my fave pods, NICE TRY!, is back with a second season on household technology. crockpots are fascinating!!
legendary writer cynthia ozick with a wonderful, complicated remembrance of a long-ago epistolary relationship.
i became a huge cricket fan after watching cricket fever: mumbai indians on netflix. i’m always on the lookout for cricket clubs and communities in the US, like this one on staten island.
speaking of international sports, i also recently fell for formula 1 in similar circumstances via netflix’s drive to survive. if you’re like me and want to get further in, the ringer and the athletic have great F1 pods.
people ask me my pronouns all the time. i usually want to respond with something snarky like “no/thank you” or “yes/please”. recently i have been answering “she/they” just to see how it feels. i’m not sure. what i am sure of is that i can’t stand being asked, no matter the intention, and i do not want to police anyone. this essay captures much of what i am feeling perfectly.
keke palmer sounds like an amazing human, and i can’t wait to see “nope”.
i’m not usually a malcom gladwell person, but this episode of his pod included all my favorite things: judy garland, old hollywood, historical perspectives on drunk driving and alcoholism.
baseball uses very specific mud. i still wish the redsox hadn’t traded mookie.
finally, you may ask how i can afford and have time to read all this paywalled content etc etc. i don’t! i listen via the AUDM app, which for $5/mo allows you to listen to the best stories from a billion publications like the nytimes, the new yorker, the atlantic, vanity fair, rolling stone and more.
UPCOMING SHOWS
Aug 13 - Delhi NY
Andes Hotel - Outdoors
FREE
Aug 27 Goshen MA
Lady & The Amp Festival - Outdoors
TICKETS
Sep 10 - Ashburnham MA - RESCHEDULE!!
Scenic Songs: A Hiking Concert
TICKETS
Oct 14 - Pittsfield MA
Colonial Theater - supporting Susan Werner
TICKETS
Oct 30 - Cambridge MA
Atwood’s
TICKETS
***
Nov 4 - 13 - Santa Barbara CA
Miss You Like Hell at Out Of The Box Theatre
MORE INFO
Nov 10 - 19 - Wilkes-Barre PA
Miss You Like Hell at King’s College
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Nov 17 - 21 - Richmond VA
Miss You Like Hell at University of Richmond
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LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023
Jan 19 - Feb 19 - San Jose CA
Miss You Like Hell at City Lights
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Oct 14 - Nov 11 - Seattle WA
Miss You Like Hell at Strawberry Theatre
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If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
zip it