THEY'RE PLAYING MY SONG - Bruce Pollock
One of the main reasons I selected this book was because of the subtitle: Fifty-Two Great Songwriters Discuss Their Craft. I'm generally fascinated by the music world and the ability to write lyrics and compose music. The possibility of getting more insight into how different people make this happen is compelling for me.
Author/editor Bruce Pollock has been writing about music and interviewing musicians for publications for more than half a century and this book collects 52 of those interviews (some, as he notes in his introduction, for the first time since their original publication, and some newly updated) going back as early as 1973.
I generally liked what was presented here - we definitely do get a glimpse of some true genius at work. And who doesn't enjoy learning how a popular or favorite song was conceived?
Perhaps I'm on my own with this, but while I recognized a majority of the names of the people included here, there definitely were a few people whose name was previously unknown. And similarly (but not always in the same category), there are people interviewed here who are truly songwriters but not performers and sometimes we as listeners forget that a favorite song maybe wasn't written by the artists who made it popular.
Along these lines, one of the first that caught my attention was Doc Pomus (is anyone else saying "Who the heck is that?"?) who, Pollock notes, along with Jerry Leiber, made a living ghostwriting words for Elvis Presley and Ray Charles. Hits of his include "Youngblood" by the Coasters and "I'm a Man" by Fabian. But what caught my attention was his quote:
“You know, I met John Lennon last year at a BMI dinner, in fact we spent the whole dinner together. One of the biggest kicks I had was when Lennon told me that one of the first songs the Beatles ever did was a song I wrote called ‘Lonely Avenue.’ You never know if other writers are aware of you. And he was telling me originally all they wanted to do was reach a point, like Morty and myself or like Carole King and Gerry, where they could make enough money to survive writing songs. Then when all that success happened; look at him — he can’t cope.”
Of course Lennon would be aware of a songwriter who wasn't also a performer and really, anyone truly interested in music, should be, too.
If there's anything to learn from the book it's that there is no secret formula (not that I expected one). Everyone's process is different and what works for one person probably won't work for anyone else. One of the more interesting methods came from Buffy Sainte-Marie:
“I’m a professional performer but not a professional songwriter. Composing is just a question of allowing the music to come to me and accepting the music. You don’t get to judge the music that comes into your head (or I know I don’t!). I don’t judge it; I just accept it and then I filter it for an audience. It’s the performer in me that filters it for an audience. I’m not going to sing something for somebody that I think is just going to bore them. As a performer I’d feel like a robber if I did that. But as a writer, I just write whatever comes into my head."
And while I've personally never been a Frank Zappa fan, I thought that what he had to say was some of the most interesting. There's too much of what I liked to actually quote here, but he sums it up with:
“Basically what people want to hear in a song is I love you, you love me; I’m okay you’re okay; the leaves turn brown, they fell off the trees; the wind was blowing, it got cold, it rained, it stopped raining; you went away, my heart broke, you came back and my heart was okay. I think basically that is deep down what everybody wants to hear — it’s been proven by numbers."
I am a fan of Steely Dan, so it was nice to get a little insight from Donald Fagen and it was interesting to me to read how much he really worked together with Walter Becker in their songwriting - the give-and-take bouncing ideas off of each other.
Often I found an artists talk about their work interesting but not especially illuminating. Randy Newman would be a prime example:
“A lot of the people I write about are insensitive or a little crazy in a different way than I’m crazy. I don’t ever actually run into any of these people on the street. (...) But it’s never a situation where I’m living through these twerps that I write about. Still, they’re more interesting to me than heroic characters. Way more interesting. (...) You see, I don’t interest me, writing about me. I couldn’t name you any song where I was writing about me. I mean there’s a whole world of people and there’s no reason why a songwriter should be limited any more than a short story writer or a novelist. I hate songs like ‘I’ve Got to Be Me.’ "
And what a contrast to go from the self-deprecating Randy Newman to the smugness of Marc Campbell:
"I’m writing a book called ‘44 Women,’ which is my memoir. And I’m just using the women as the chapter headings. Because you look back on your life, and really it is, and this is such a cliché, for me it really is sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I don’t remember that most influential English teacher I had. I don’t remember some of my closest friends’ names. But I do remember the first time I took LSD; I do remember the first time I ever got laid; I do remember the first rock and roll song that I went and bought was ‘Return to Sender.’ So it’s a cliché, but it’s fucking true. I decided to hang this memoir around the women. And so the very first chick I tried to impress when I was in a garage band in 1964, all the way up to the divorce, my divorce of forty years ago. And these were all important beacons."
Which really has nothing to do with the craft of songwriting. Or does it? Is it all about getting laid?
Sometimes the song writer revealed a little more than they probably should have. Susanna Hoffs would be one of those when she is quoted:
“(The producer) had this great idea that whichever one of us was singing lead vocals would come in in the evening. His theory was you can feel more relaxed and more in the mood to sing in the evening. He went out of his way to do something special for everyone and he kind of pulled a prank on me. He told me that Olivia Newton-John, who he’d just worked with, sang in the nude on all her songs, and she’d never sung better. Well, it wasn’t true, but I fell for it. I said, ‘Really? You’re kidding!’ I kind of thought, well, that’s like skinny dipping. So I developed this whole routine on the record where, of course, they put in like a folding screen between me and the control room, so no one could see in. And it became this funny thing where I sang most of the songs on that record in various stages of undress, including ‘Eternal Flame.’ It was just for that record; it’s not something I ever did again."
To me, this made the producer look creepy and Hoffs extremely gullible.
Overall, lots of interesting interviews with nothing going too into depth on process (I don't think any artist gets more than five pages in the book) or discussion of their craft. But for a general read about music, songwriters, and the music business, this is well worth spending some time and money on.
This book contains the following:
Still of the Night”
Frank Zappa (1974)
Laura Nyro (1984)
Paul Simon (1976, 1985)
Jerry Garcia (1984) and Robert Hunter / Grateful Dead (1974)
Valerie Simpson (2009)
Lou Reed (1974)
Tim Rice (1974): “Jesus Christ, Superstar”
Melvin Van Peebles (1974)
Don McLean (2020): “American Pie”
Neil Smith / Alice Cooper (2012): “I’m Eighteen”
Steven Tyler / Aerosmith (1985, 1987): “Dream On” and “Walk This Way”
Linda Creed (1974)
Donald Fagen / Steely Dan (1985)
Randy Newman (1974)
John Prine (1974)
Bruce Springsteen (1973, 1984)
Allen Toussaint (2014): “Southern Nights”
Chris Frantz / Tom Tom Club (2014): “Genius of Love”
Marc Campbell / the Nails (2012): “88 Lines About 44 Women”
Neil Peart / Rush (1986)
Billy Steinberg (2012): “Like a Virgin”
Narada Michael Walden (2012): “Freeway of Love”
Julie Gold (2013): “From a Distance”
Andy Partridge / XTC (1988)
Kool Moe Dee (2001)
Dave Alvin / the Blasters (2013): “4th of July”
Susanna Hoffs / the Bangles (2012): “Eternal Flame”
Sophie B. Hawkins (2019): “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover”
Todd Thomas / Arrested Development (2001): “Tennessee”
Travon Potts (2001): “Angel of Mine”
Shelly Peiken (2018): “What a Girl Wants”
Tom Higgenson / Plain White T’s (2020): “Hey There Delilah”
Stephan Moccio (2015): “Wrecking Ball”
Kevin Kadish (2018): “All About That Bass”
Index of Song Titles
Looking for a good book? Anyone interested in songs, songwriting, and/or popular music will enjoy reading what the artists themselves have to say about their work in They're Playing My Song, edited by Bruce Pollock.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
4 stars
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They're Playing My Song: Fifty-Two Great Songwriters Discuss Their Craft
author/editor: Bruce Pollock
publisher: Excelsior Editions/State University of New York Press
ISBN: 9798855803402
paperback, 298 pages
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