Chapter Eleven

Songwriting in Nashville: writing dates, song demos; publisher and friends

Tracks in this episode:

• Keep It To Yourself demo and cassette tape discussion with co-writer Bill DeMain
• One More Time cassette demo - Joy Lynn White and me, Joy recorded this song for her 2005 One More Time album co-produced with Kyle Lehning

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

Chapter eleven. One of the main reasons I moved to Nashville was the possibility of landing a publishing deal. It wasn't so much the money, though that would be nice, as the legitimacy I was seeking. A music industry vote of confidence that said my songs were valuable. I wish I'd thought creative accomplishments alone were enough, but I had a daughter to raise and we needed money to live. I'd tried back in New York bringing tapes of my songs to Warner Chapel, one of the few major song publishers who'd even entertained the possibility of signing someone like me. That is, a singer-songwriter who wasn't likely to sell a huge amount of records, but might write songs other artists could record and maybe even have hits with. And in the nineties there were still those fluke moments where unlikely suspects hit the jackpot. Ben Folds, Liz Fair, Beck, all talented but uncategorizable. I'd received encouragement from Warner Chapel, but no deal. In Nashville, songs opened doors. They were the lifeblood of the town, the engine that fueled the country music industry. Song publishing that began with sheet music in the early part of the twentieth century and then encompassed performance royalties and mechanical licenses, the right to record a copyright piece of music was a legitimate business. And songwriters have long been drawn to Music City, like hopeful Starlets heading to Hollywood to compete with the best. Co-writing was a huge part of Nashville songwriting, and not only for creative reasons, two or three or four heads together could be better than one, but it also gave a song more parents to help the creation make its way out into the world. Greg Trooper was the first person I knew who signed a publishing deal with Welk Music. Yes, that Welk Lawrence Welk's song publishing company, run by the TV Schmaltz King's son. I'd adored the Lawrence Welk show when I was a kid, especially the dancing feet of Arthur Duncan. But all joking aside, Welk was a legitimate company connected with the Vanguard Jazz and Sugar Hill Bluegrass labels. They had big success publishing writers like Costus in the eighties, with his new traditional country songs like Timber and Blame It on Your Heart, recorded by Patty Loveless, and Oh What a Crying Shame, a hit for the Mavericks. Classic, undeniable songs any writer would be proud of, the kind I aimed to write. Greg passed my albums on to Bob Kirsch, head of Welk's Nashville office, and Bob loved my songs. He was an old school music biz guy, wrote for Billboard before shifting to the business and publishing side of things. He had an intellectual bent that maybe made his belief a double-edged sword. Would less cerebral types get what Bob naturally tuned into? Was he to New York for Nashville? I visited Welk's offices on thirty first Avenue off West End, a mile and a half from the Heart of Music Row on sixteenth and seventeenth Avenues. Maybe the oblique location was intentional, telling the town that Welk held itself apart from the commercial songwriting world. Perhaps here artistry was king? I was greeted in the front office by Tootie, the office manager. She was pure Tennessee from her year-round suntan to the Titans football jersey. Bob and I chatted in his office and then walked out to his Cadillac to drive several blocks around Nashville's one-way system to reach the Tin Angel, a block and a half away on foot. This would become our monthly routine. In the car, Bob played me a disc he was excited about, usually a classic I might have missed, like Fred Neal or Dion. He also handed me a book or two asking, Have you read this? Bob was hip in a way that came from years of being in the music biz for the right reasons. He loved artists, words, and music. In Nashville, that love could be put to practical use. I'd always heard don't give up your publishing unless you really, really need the money. I didn't know anyone this didn't apply to. Chances were if you were looking for a publishing deal, you did need the money. I'd also heard don't take the money unless it's a life-changing amount of money. When Bob Kirsch offered me a deal with Welk, I was in debt, renting a house I couldn't afford, and working at the dairy dip while trying to write songs and tour. So when Welk offered me a decent advance and monthly draw, that was most definitely life-changing. I typed up Schedule A myself on our home computer and attached it to the contract. The songs I'd already written, cataloging a lifetime of struggles, hopes and dreams and melody and rhyme. Others, like War Between the Sheets or You Oughta Be Against the Law, never existed beyond my cassette and CD archive. But the titles alone had value and potential. As much as I could really use the money, I hoped Welk was signing me because they believed they'd earn it back through convincing other artists to record my songs. All it took was one song I'd heard, and other cuts would follow. I held the contract in my hands. The weight of all those pages and the legalese. Each party acknowledges and agrees, etc. Familiar from my years spent temping in entertainment company law offices. This time it was my name listed as a party. I felt hopeful but scared. What if the one never came? I was agreeing to turn in a certain number of songs for the two years of the term with option for a third. At least I did know of one artist who'd always be open to recording the songs I wrote. Me. And the Tin Angel, a comfortingly retro bar restaurant with tin ceiling and exposed brick. Everyone seemed to know Bob Kirsch. He wasn't the trendiest guy in the room, but he was a man of substance who believed in art that stood the test of time. Artists and writers who created work both new and lasting. We toasted my deal with glasses of iced tea. Gone were the days of the Nashville liquid lunch. Bob drove me back to my minivan, and as we said goodbye, he handed me a CD of Small Town Talk by Bobby Charles like a benediction. Go forth, write some potential hits, but be real, be true. As I wound around the hills to pick Hazel up from school, I smiled and thought, writing songs is my job now. So five days a week I drove Hazel to MLK. The school sat in the shadow of a towering brick smokestack with freight trains running nearby. Railroad tracks crisscrossed all the older parts of Nashville, but you couldn't actually catch a passenger train anywhere. Union Station downtown was an imposing stone structure boasting a posh hotel, but it hadn't seen a passenger train in decades. I appreciated the lost Atlantis mystique of old Nashville, the ghosts of what it been. At the same time wished it possessed a few more benefits of modern urban living. They called Nashville a city, but in the early two thousands that felt like a stretch. The Pittsburgh Pirates farm team, the sounds, played in a stadium well below the standard of every other ballpark in the country. But what other stadium had a guitar-shaped scoreboard? The balance between old treasures and big ticket improvements was a precarious one I saw on full display any time I set out from the house. After dropping off Hazel, it was time to write. How are the gigs and when do you head out? were standard conversation starters. Random encounters were one of the highlights of getting coffee, but when it came to songwriting, nothing was left a chance. Appointments to write were a regular thing. I managed one a day, starting about 10 a.m., leaving time to grab lunch before I needed to pick Hazel up at school at 3 p.m. No school bus at MLK Magnet. The hardcore pros might have two sessions a day. I told myself it was okay if my second appointment was with myself. Bill Lloyd was one of the first writers I met when I'd first visited Nashville five or six years earlier. I admired his tireless work ethic and positive vibe. Bill had written a mind-boggling number of songs. He maintained a running list with lyrics and a binder, and it made practical sense. Songwriting is an art, it's magic and alchemy. But it was also a business that could pay the bills, and a methodical approach made sense. If you write what feels like an instant hit or classic, but find you can't remember the words or melody or chords, did the song ever even exist? I aspired to get a better filing system for my writing. I was awed by Bill's guitar playing and the grown-up ranch house he and his wife owned just south of town. He was liked and respected by both the commercial country and more idiosyncratic pop contingents in town. When we sat down to write in Bill's office, we nearly always came up with something good. I recorded one of our co-writes Stop Showing Up in My Dreams for the Sugar Tree. Such a fun song I couldn't have written on my own. If we were lacking in ideas, he always had a cool guitar figure or chord progression on standby. This kind of professionalism was part of what attracted me to Nashville. I wanted to bust out of my shambolic indie Hey, if it happens, it happens ways. Bill Demain and I connected through bug music, grassroots song publishing administrators who fostered relationships between their writers. He was a fellow Bert Backrack fan and devotee of sophisticated sixties pop music and aesthetics. His band Swan Dive recorded with Brad Jones, and he frequently wrote with Jill Sobuel, a songwriter and performer I adored. Jill took the job opening for Warren's Evon after me. I saw the show when they came through Nashville and was stunned when Jill brought Warren out in her set to cover the Johnny Cash June Carter hit Jackson. I wished I had that kind of nerve in Hootzpa. Bill was a master of melody, artful chord changes, and clever lyrics. When we'd meet up to write, usually at Bill's apartment complex off West End Avenue, the first half hour of our session was devoted to my rants about dozy drivers and the lack of Italian food in Nashville. Bill moved to town in the late eighties, but hailed from New Jersey, so he understood those challenges. Next we'd move on to romantic travails. Internet dating was still in its infancy, and so provided a fresh vein. The results didn't necessarily make it into our songs, but amused us so much that the downstairs neighbor had to pound on his ceiling with a broom handle to quiet our cries of laughter. In the early part of my relationship with Paul, I vented about LA Sam and what a jerk he was. Pillow talk conversation, how awful it felt to be used and taken for granted. Where is he? I'll kill him, said Paul, half joking. I can give you his address, I replied. We laughed and laughed. The next morning I met up with Bill, and he had a chord sequence in the perfect Bossa Nova groove he'd been kicking around. We were both devoted fans of the Sopranos. Then in its second season, murder felt natural, hilarious even. The beauty of songwriting is you can exact revenge in verse and chorus to make other people and yourself feel better over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

I keep wanting that first one to go to a not quite a resolved last chord, maybe not a minor though. Is there a way that it would be like a but then the next one should resolve or or the next one's at the bridge, right? Yeah. Okay, so let's try that.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

You say you'd like to kill the man who broke my heart. You don't think he should be allowed to live. You say you want to shoot the dude who screwed me up. Me and trying so hard to forgive. But here's his address, here's his picture, here's the make and model of his car. He works until 4:30. Then he hangs out at the topless bar with a girl on each arm. If he should come to harm, just keep it to yourself. Remember how he cheated and he lied.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Some mornings I'd pull up in front of Joylyn White's house around eleven AM. It would already be hot, bees buzzing, birds going crazy in the trees on her street of nineteen thirties bungalows, no sidewalks, just metal mailboxes on posts, older cars. It was a short street just up the hill behind Belmont Boulevard, one of the nicest thoroughfares in town, the one newcomers used until they figured out the cut-throughs and shortcuts. I'd grab my guitar out of the back seat of the Aerostar and approach Joy's front door. No need to knock, as two dogs would start barking, a cat circling on the hardwood floor. Hey, said Joy. She and I would talk about her visits to her mother's place in East Tennessee or what was going on around town as she heated up coffee in the microwave. The bright yellow walls and red trim of her fifty style kitchen were a perfect backdrop for Joy's red hair and film star good looks. She was the perfect intersection of cute girl next door and dangerous femme fatale. You got anything you want to work on? she'd ask. I'd think for a second, but then Joy would start telling me about this idea she had for a song. It was hard not to be drawn in by her fiery mane and tough attitude on the cover of wild love when I'd first discovered Joy's music at Sony. It was impossible not to be knocked out by her voice. It hit right in the gut with hurt and power. As I'd gotten to know her, I'd learned she was also a genuine character who'd scored some commercial country success in spite of her outspoken, untamable persona. Lacking the calculating level focus to play the game, joy reminded me of that mix of indomitable spirit and vulnerability in artists like George Jones or Loretta Lynn that drew me to country music in the first place. Without a Mooney Lynn or Pappy Daly, she had to fend for herself in a world that didn't always appreciate blunt honesty. How's that smart girl of yours doing? Joy would ask. There were colleagues and co-writers in Nashville, collaborators and musicians you hired, and then there were people who'd loan you their car, babysit your kid, cry on your shoulder, and let you cry on theirs. Joy and I wrote good songs together, and singing with her elevated my singing, but knowing I had a girlfriend in that town meant so much more.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Any time? One, two, three, four.