Songwriting is hard

Thursday night I went over to Wayne's house (my producer/arranger) to go over some tunes we'll do the next 2 weeks for the Monterey Jazz Festival outreach program, visiting schools in the Monterey/Salinas area. I've been doing a lot of writing recently, and one song in particular I'm really proud of lyrically, and I recorded a version with a few vocal harmonies. I wrote the lyrics in a few hours over 2 days, and then spent a few sessions over several weeks trying to refine the tune and find chord changes. I don't want to give away the song idea quite yet, but basically I'm struggling to find the right groove, maybe a 6/8 or something sea shanty-ish (except I don't know what a sea shanty sounds like, other than "What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor"). I'm reminded of something Claudia Villela said, about the gorgeous Portuguese sea songs and their sadness--it gave an insight in Brazilian "saudades," or nostalgia. The Portuguese were great mariners, but that meant dangerous months or years away from home, sad homes on a rocky, sea-struck coast.

I don't know enough theory, just enough to get myself out to choppy water, so I'm guided by my ear, but then I find myself wondering, do all my songs sound the same? Of course, Dylan said he'd only ever written 1 or 2 songs, he just kept re-writing them differently. And this morning I was reading these Rumi poems in a book I just bought and he said this: "If you want to be thought a great person, learn some subtle point and say it with many variations as the answer to every question."

Anyway, I played my new song for Wayne (I had tried to get another one in shape for him the night before but couldn't decide between a Bill Withers-inspired approach or something more Jobim-like. Wayne ("the Doctor") gave 1 or 2 suggestions, basically thought it needed work (which of course it does). One suggestion that I don't think I like is changing the lyric in a way that think will steal some of the mysticism from it. On the harmonic side, he suggested changing the bass notes so that the melody isn't always on the tonic of the chord, which is a good idea--of course, these chords were super basic changes anyway. He named 2 or 3 songs to listen to to illustrate that idea (his knowledge in this respect is encyclopedic--he can always name several examples of a particular groove or approach on a song and then find the album and play it for you and it's crystal clear). But on the whole he didn't seem that thrilled with it. Of course, this is pretty much the way our relationship has always worked, he gives me 1-2 sentence assessments of my stuff, 1 or 2 suggestions, and not too much encouragement, and I stew about it and most of the time I go back and improve it. But of course I always want him to go "that's fantastic, it's done, all it needs is an arrangement." I think he's only said that once to me. Ironically, that song didn't make the cut on the album.