Some songs to write by...

Some writers find silence inspires, I dig tunes

I don’t burn candles or incense. Or turn the lights way up or way down. Or light a fire. For some reason that probably goes back to me loving black licorice from the penny candy store, my love of the Marx Brothers and my refusal to talk to girls in fourth grade (“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”), when I settle down to write, I almost always have music in my ears.

The moment where music really worked its magic is when I was sitting in the press box at Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium, Florida State, a 20-time (or so) loser in the College World Series to that point, having just lost the title game to the dreaded Miami Hurricanes by a single run in 1999.

It was a thrilling World Series, that win over Stanford to put them in the title game as cool a college game as I’d ever seen. I had covered Mike Martin’s team for six seasons, got to know all the coaches, the players and even some of their parents and knowing “11” as well as I did, how many times he’d been to Omaha and failed and how this was going to sting. I understood all that. And felt it. Sure, as a writer/reporter I had a job to do but, geez, I’d followed them all the way out here. And so I had to channel all that into words. My words.

I had a bunch of CD’s with me for just that purpose. The song that lit my heart, the music that helped the words come out of the ends of my fingers was Jeff Beck’s “Nadia,” a beautifully sad instrumental that I played over and over and over until my tender story was complete. Now, somebody might say “Hey, you’re making too big a deal of a story that’s in the newspaper today, in the trash tomorrow.” But I never looked at it that way. To me, it was history. I wanted it to be right.

Jeff Beck’s “Nadia” from “You Had It Coming”

As I moved into teaching, since I had my students writing just about every day, I thought playing music — GOOD music, not what was in their ears the rest of the day — might expose them to something else AND (almost more importantly) keep them from talking. THEY didn’t suspect that, though. (Wink)

I’d always loved Bryan Ferry’s music with his innovative band Roxy Music and I loved his solo albums, too. When I heard this remix of a track from his “Avonmore” album, “Driving Me Wild,” I fell in love with it and thought it was just different enough to catch the ear of my students, a great song just about the right length for in-class writing assignments. What was really cool, some of my students put it on their phone and used it for other writing assignments in other classes, a sure sign of acceptance.

Bryan Ferry remix of “Driving Me Wild” from “Avonmore.”

Since I was never into drink or drugs, when Neil Young came out with “Psychedelic Pill” I was wondering what Neil’s old reefer-and-who-knows-what-else addled brain would come up with. Sure enough, the opening track is a hypnotic 20-plus minute track called “Driftin’ Back” where Neil magically takes just a few chords and goes somewhere with his guitar solos and it just drags you along. Didn’t share this with my kids jn class, didn’t want to corrupt ‘em, you know. But for me, it’s fun to write to.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse - “Driftin’ Back” from “Psychedelic Pill”

Traffic was one of those “jam” bands from the early 70’s featuring Stevie Winwood on vocals and imaginative, almost jazzy instrumentation in, once again, a hypnotic sort of groove that both relaxes and inspires. At least it did for me. Funny that Winwood later wrote a song, “Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired.” He shoulda listened to his own music.

Traffic’s “Low Spark Of The High-Heeled Boys” from the album of the same name.

A few weeks back, I wrote about this entire Side Two on Bruce’s second album, a real New York City suite, “Incident On 57th Street,” “Rosalita” and “New York City Serenade,” three amazing songs that hinted at how much talent this runty Jersey Devil really had, even though his next album “Born To Run” sounded nothing like this. Sometimes, I’ll play the entire side but “Rosalita” is such an uplifting, danceable song, trying to keep your sentences making sense while listening to it at the same time is a challenge. But “Serenade” is just so beautiful, eloquent, time-stopping. Bruce’s music makes you think a little deeper, look a little further, go where you might not have thought to go — before you listened. It’s evocative, that’s the word.

And if it doesn’t get you going, just push the needle back to the first song on Side Two and start again. It worked for me. It might for you, too.

Springsteen’s “NYC Serenade” from “The Wild, The Innocent, The E Street Shuffle”