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Post by towilmusic on Mar 7, 2012 20:07:04 GMT -5
:::Here's a conversation I would love to have with Mr Westerberg:::
In many of his interviews, he always talks about how his 1st takes of many of his songs are much more interesting to him then even his full band/studio productions.
As a songwriter/lyricist myself, I completely agree with this take. Sometimes the moment of creation is all you got...any attempt to re-capture/recreate is absolutely useless.
I can't even begin to tell you how many songs I've "LOST" because I didn't record them at that 'moment of inspiration', they are actually fleeting and once again, my 2nd, 3rd+ attempts to recreate the feeling/technique(s) of that moment are/were useless.
Sometimes its just the way that I was strumming, my timing, etc. Other times it was because of the "stream of consciousness" words I used. Paul is a MASTER Of this technique and his words just flow with his music incredibly in my opinion. While 99.9% of the lyrics out there sound forced and are pretty much pedestrian, I'd love to hear how many, what % of his music comes to him in this manner.
I.E.
Waitress in the Sky
Can't Hardly Wait
Case in point, one of my favorite songs ever is John Lennon's "Real Love", the one which opened the 80s movie "Imagine" VS the overproduced single which they recorded when the surviving members released "Anthology".
I'll take his demo any day over that crap!!!
Have a great evening folks....TW-
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Post by FreeRider on Mar 7, 2012 23:40:18 GMT -5
Well, I think he definitely has a real good structure set down of the song and then he plays around with it a lot. I'm sensing that he has lots of song fragments of ideas that aren't fully formed or fleshed out yet.
I think it's when he's ready to record for real that he's into that "first take is the best", that spontaneity and changing something on the fly, or maybe he flubs a line and ad libs something in to cover for it.
In the Come Feel Me Tremble documentary, he shows us that he definitely goes thru some variations and tweaking down in the basement, trying to put an idea together, discarding scraps of paper with lyrics on 'em....
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Post by ClamsCasino on Mar 8, 2012 12:24:09 GMT -5
"The first take is always the best" sometimes seems like another way of saying, "I don't feel like actually finishing this song." IMO, the demos on the Mats reissues are all inferior to the final recordings. From Treatment Bound to Talent Show, the demos are all stiff and lifeless compared to the album versions. That kind of debunks Paul's claims that the early takes are always the best. A while back, somebody compared it to the Townsend's demos for The Who versus the final album versions. Pete probably could have released those and said that they were finished, but the final band recordings are all infinitely superior. The trouble with Paul's basement recordings is that they never made it to next step of the process.
Not to mention that there's a huge difference between publishing a first take of a song versus not bothering to even finish writing the song before recording and releasing it. But yeah, towilmusic, I think I remember Paul saying exactly what you said: That the moment of creation is the high point for him, and then it's all downhill from there.
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Post by thepogo on Mar 8, 2012 15:09:09 GMT -5
Great Joe Strummer pic! As far as his writing. I think there is a place for both, the first take and the studio produced.
I think he's either too lazy, bored or cant financially swing going into a studio. I really like the basement stuff. BUT I would love to hear his basement stuff with a real drummer and producer. Keep everything else the same.
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Post by anarkissed on Mar 8, 2012 21:21:39 GMT -5
I think there is a place for both, the first take and the studio produced. I think that's the key: both approaches can be valid. Both approaches sometimes work, and sometimes don't...I'm not big on any artist being too dogmatic, and falling into that "there's only one way to produce a record" thing...I get bored when a guitarist uses the same tone and series of effects on everything he does, or when a producer uses the same vocal sound on every song on an album... |
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Post by TomT on Mar 9, 2012 8:36:31 GMT -5
"The first take is always the best" sometimes seems like another way of saying, "I don't feel like actually finishing this song." IMO, the demos on the Mats reissues are all inferior to the final recordings. From Treatment Bound to Talent Show, the demos are all stiff and lifeless compared to the album versions. That kind of debunks Paul's claims that the early takes are always the best. I think the album release of Treatment Bound WAS the demo. They tried to polish it up for the album and it just didn't feel right so they put the basement demo of it on the record. I could be wrong but that's what I think I read somewhere. The extra cut we have on the expanded release of Hootenanny is the inferior version IMO. |
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Jer
Beagle Scout
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Post by Jer on Mar 9, 2012 8:55:27 GMT -5
That sounds right. Similar scenario with That's Entertainment by The Jam. Great Tune. The polished, full version was released on Sound Affects, but it lacked the feel and charm of the demo, so they put the demo on the complation SNAP!
I think the "first take is the best" happens to some people more than others. I think it sounds better in an interview than in actual, consistent execution.
Listening to the basement stuff PW has released I think a lot of that stuff could have benefitted from another couple takes. Maybe he's taken the idea a bit too far. My experience, for whatever it's worth, has been somewhere between the 3rd & 4th is usally the best - after you get the feel but before you get bored. It talkes a couple times through to really get the cadence and fall into the pocket. Of course it's different for everyone and it varies from day to day.
One of my issues with the basement PW stuff is that he just doesn't seem to know the song well enough. I know - that's part of the point and the charm and all that, and I don't need the polished takes like on Eventually or whatever, but at least on Mono the songs were a bit more realized. If he would have run through the download stuff a couple more times before recording I probably would have liked it more.
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bside
Star Scout
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Post by bside on Mar 9, 2012 10:43:01 GMT -5
I think the "first take" thing can be used as a screen, if you will, to cover over shoddy production and a man who is hurt by some commercially failed, fully produced albums. If the songs are released 90% percent complete and given the apparent "tossed-off" treatment, the audience fills in the gaps to proclaim genius, sometimes based more on what could have been.
But I don't know, I've heard it said the take we have of "Unsatisified" was faked by that point, so maybe it is about the line between inspiration and polish. And I think there is such thing as being over practiced. Maybe this line of thinking would work best with a band (for songs meant as such, sans the acoustic numbers), instead of tracking every instrument yourself and maintaining that off-the-cuff inspiration through each take. A band could play off of each other's energy and good players could definitely give solid takes while skirting the reckless danger that seems apparent in a lot of Paul's music while fresh (i.e. a solid drummer who is mic'd properly).
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Post by ClamsCasino on Mar 9, 2012 14:39:20 GMT -5
But I don't know, I've heard it said the take we have of "Unsatisified" was faked by that point... Which is funny, because as I was reading your post I was remembering an interview where Paul said that if they'd spent another half hour on Unsatisfied, the it might have felt like a finished song. I think the "faked" thing comes from an interview where Paul said that his vocal was more an acting performance than true emotion. Anyway, I still think it might be one of his best vocal performances ever. And I think your right about the "first take" method working within a band dynamic, but not really working with a one-man multitracking (un)dynamic. You need the magic of those other musicians vibrating against each other to create those first take highs. And I think the song actually needs to be written first before hitting the record button. |
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Jer
Beagle Scout
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Post by Jer on Mar 11, 2012 9:27:28 GMT -5
wich is funny, because as I was reading your post I was remembering an interview where Paul said that if they'd spent another half hour on Unsatisfied, the it might have felt like a finished song. I think the "faked" thing comes from an interview where Paul said that his vocal was more an acting performance than true emotion. Anyway, I still think it might be one of his best vocal performances ever. Funny too, on a more songwriting angle rather than performance, that Paul said Unsatisfied was a song he could write in his sleep, that it's "overrated" by fans (paraphrasing). Here's a song that a lot of us consider amazing and he considers phoned-in and over-worked! I agree with you that the vocal is really great on that tune. I think Paul's vocal tracks are never better than they are on that record. ...And I think the song actually needs to be written first before hitting the record button. Yup - my point with the basement stuff. There's a difference between rehearsing the song, knowing the song, warming up, then hitting record and nailing an awesome first take - and writing the song on the spot and hitting record the first time it's actually played. The success rate of the former has to be much higher than the latter, but it seems like we get more of the latter with PW in recent years. |
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wibbler
Dances With Posts
"bleeding but we ain't cut"
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Post by wibbler on Mar 11, 2012 17:14:17 GMT -5
Funny too, on a more songwriting angle rather than performance, that Paul said Unsatisfied was a song he could write in his sleep, that it's "overrated" by fans (paraphrasing). Here's a song that a lot of us consider amazing and he considers phoned-in and over-worked! Here's what Paul had to say in the Besterberg liner notes about Nowhere Man: |
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Post by wecantgetanybetter on Mar 11, 2012 19:20:32 GMT -5
From the "Seeing Through Paul" movie ...
Paul: "To write it and capture it really quick is my performance. It's not like write it, rehearse it, record it, then perform it. It's like, write it and perform it for the tape."
Don Was: "Creation is a completely different synaptic activity from recreation. Recreation is a fucking bore, it's like karaoke. What you strive for in a studio is to free your mind, so you forget that you're holding this piece of wood. It's like alien abduction. You really don't know what happened the last ten minutes but maybe you better go listen to it. 'I played that.' It's to get that lost." ... I never heard a tape that was this good. ..."
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Post by FreeRider on Mar 12, 2012 10:01:27 GMT -5
it seems like we've had this discussion before, haven't we? No matter, we need something to talk about anyway to keep this board alive.
Some really great points made here. And funny that Jer mentioned Paul's take on "Unsatisfied" because I remember reading something that Pete Townshend had written in the liner notes to his demos albums. He said they could never figure out why stupid songs like "Magic Bus" or "Boris the Spider" were fan favorites. He might not have said "stupid", I can't remember the exact quote, but he certainly didn't feel much a song like "Magic Bus" and I guess that's what happens sometimes with songwriting----the artist is never going to know exactly what turns the fans on.
And yeah, I can't imagine either there is a high success rate with Paul just rolling tape and blurting stuff out. There may be some good ideas that come from that method, but I have to think those ideas later get refined. Maybe he doesn't rehearse it so much but knows in his head how he wants it organized or structured and then rolls tape and just goes for it.
But who knows? If he spent a little more time on them, maybe the songs would be much better, maybe not. It might explain why he feels a lot of his stuff is not for the fans in that it's a catharsis for him. I read an interview with Neil Young and he had mentioned that he hears music in his head all the time and he has to get it out, like keeping "regular", he joked.
Michael Bland posted on here that Paul is the same way, he's got music and ideas constantly running thru his head. "gotta get it out of my system" might take on a different meaning in this light.
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Post by anarkissed on Mar 12, 2012 10:25:09 GMT -5
I'm sure we've had the discussion before; it always comes up whenever anyone suggests that Paul try recording out of the basement with a band and someone else producing...As for Pete, I think he also had a low opinion of "Pinball Wizard"; maybe an artist isn't always the best judge of his own work...In that case, he didn't think much of it because he wrote it in response to someone else's suggestion, so maybe he didn't care as much about it personally...Heh, he also didn't think much of it because it didn't take him much time or effort to write it...
I'm kinda starting to think Paul may not have as much music constantly running through his head as he used to...That'd certainly seem to have been the case during that Stereo/Mono-CFMT-DMS period, but it's just hard to imagine him writing and recording hundreds of songs, and only releasing three or four of them...
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Post by FreeRider on Mar 12, 2012 10:34:08 GMT -5
well, that certainly may be the case, anarkissed, about Paul's muse or whatever you want to call it.
Paul Simon gave an interview recently and he said he felt at times that the "muse" had left him and he really had nothing to say anymore, no melody to do anything with. So maybe all genius eventually fades away? Or goes through long strettches of dormancy?
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Post by anarkissed on Mar 12, 2012 12:21:26 GMT -5
Yeah, and I think it's not always a case of real "writer's block", where the guy is sitting in front of a blank piece of paper, sweating, for hours on end, while he struggles to come up with something...It's probably more that's he just busy living the rest of his life, and doesn't always think about it so much...
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Post by FreeRider on Mar 12, 2012 14:29:49 GMT -5
Hmmm. Yeah, I'll buy that. I think that's a good point too; there's more to life now than struggling to crank out some tunes because the label is demanding to hear something. There's no pressure on Paul to produce like that. If anything, it's a creative outlet now for him and not just a job to satisfy the label and get them off his back. He can just enjoy being a dad and enjoy life with his family. But the Paul Simon comment was quite interesting. I'll have to see if I can find it. ETA: Found it! Go here: www.scribd.com/doc/49620928/Paul-Simon-Interview-Uncut-Magazine-April-2011 A quote from the interview: "I never assume writing songs is going to continue indefinitely. I'm kind of amazed it has gone on so long." |
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Post by FreeRider on Mar 13, 2012 17:03:36 GMT -5
Does anyone think they're spoiled by listening to Paul's music? Do you think he's raised the bar as a songwriter?
The reason why I ask is that a friend gave me a copy of Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend". He likes Sweet and saw him perform the cd in it's entirety at one of Sweet's concerts to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its release. My buddy feels pretty sure that I'll dig it.
Now, I know a few songs by him from the radio and he seemed to have songs in that pop-rock style. So I'm giving it an honest listen and I've only gone thru it once and will listen to it a few more times, but the first thing that strikes me is that while Sweet has some nice vocal harmonies on it, the melodies don't seem quite as strong to me the way Paul's songs are.
I know, I know....it's a biased outlook and it's also maybe unfair to compare Matthew to Paul, but I can't help it. When someone tells me "oh, it's really great pop-rock stuff" , I am expecting to hear melodies that jump right out at you, like Paul's. I don't mean to slag on Sweet, he's a good guy and I'm liking a few tunes off of "Girlfriend", but I can't keep thinking that I can always get better stuff from Paul if I wanted some pop-rock tunes.
If "Girlfriend" was Sweet's break out album, I'm actually kind of finding it a little bland. Again, I am trying to be open to it and will give it repeated listens but I think Paul has spoiled me to the point where it's hard to give others a fair shot if the melodies and tunefulness don't jump right out at me. I dunno....has anybody else run into this problem?
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Post by timx1386 on Mar 13, 2012 18:03:43 GMT -5
I'm going to say, I really really value Paul's basement recordings. For me, you can't beat them. Yeah of course I love the mats stuff.. but I think the songwriting and style and recording method just.. works. And I don't care what anyone says, I love Paul's drums. I'm a closet songwriter - and a drummer. I think if you stuck someone in his basement to 'produce' / mess with mic placement or to fiddle with knobs to polish it up- it would lose alot of its magic..
I can't remember where I saw/heard it... but in one interview with Paul- I remember he said something like "I make music to entertain myself" ..... and I LOVE that. Thats how I've always made music. For me. I make the music I want to hear (or thats what I shoot for atleast) or music I have in my head...
Stick a Shure Bullet mic in front of Paul, put a guitar with 3 year old strings in his hands - let him add a drum track of old, kind-of tuned drums... I can't wait for that stuff. I feel like i live in that stuff.
And some songs were never meant to be more than just a riff, a handful of words - so instead of watering it down to stretch it into a 'hit' he came up with the idea of sharing huge mp3s full of all these little gems. I think thats better! i'd love to get my hands on more of his throw-away type ideas. I could listen to cassettes of that all day
I don't think he's drying up or that his muse is giving out at all. I think he's just doing what he wants: playing to entertain himself, and once in a while he feels generous enough to let us all in on it. I just really hope this isnt Grandpaboy's last stand...but if it is, I understand.
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Post by timtoast on Mar 13, 2012 19:18:16 GMT -5
Does anyone think they're spoiled by listening to Paul's music? Do you think he's raised the bar as a songwriter? Yes, I find myself with that problem. Whether I want to or not, I do compare Paul's music to new music and usually find the new stuff too bland and generic. Either that or it's me becoming a cranky old man that thinks music today is crap and those damn kids need to stay off of my lawn. |
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