Spring.

Friday, March 20th, 2009 | Uncategorized

It’s the first day of Spring, and it’s snowing here in New York.  Something’s just not right about this.

I’m currently writing this on the F train, overlooking Carroll Gardens heading in to Manhattan for another day in the studio, and I’m listening to John Prine’s, “Angel From Montgomery,” a song I’m scheduled to sing tonight with my good friends from Leroy Justice at Rockwood Music Hall.

The song’s got me thinking about what I got into in my last entry.  Mr. Prine was certainly not afraid of being incredible.  This is songwriting at it’s highest level.

What man thinks to start off a song with, “I am an old woman named after my mother…” and what man can make it so believable?  The story tells so little, but it’s laced with thick, rich imagery, and by the end of it, you know this woman (and her old man).  You know her experiences, you know her dreams and desires, and you know they’re all unfulfilled.  There’s certainly some Dylan in his voice (funny enough, I think there’s a lot of Prine in the younger Dylan (Jacob)) but it’s this voice that takes the song to an even higher plain…who of us don’t know an old woman with just as thick a rasp?  And I can’t leave out the underlying music, so inviting and almost invisible….just there to support the story.  Nothing gets in the way, it’s all working in perfect harmony.

It’s all there, so simple in it’s form and structure, so deceivingly simple….it’s a masterpiece….the kind of song  a young songwriter might listen to and think, I too could do this.

Great songwriters are much like great painters and great anything, you must learn the rules, practice, hone your craft for years before you can create things so perfectly simple time and time again.

Sometimes people get lucky and write one, but they can’t write another. I’ve been at this for years now….still practicing…..still honing….just when I think I know it all, I wake up to a snowy Spring morning, and I realize there’s still so much to learn.

Tags: angel from montgomery, dylan, john prine, leroy justice, rockwood, spring, wallflowers