Category Archives: songwriting

Fare thee well Ronnie Drew (of The Dubliners)

Irish music, Ronnie Drew, songwriting, The Dubliners

I just heard that Ronnie Drew, a singer and founder of The Dubliners, passed away in August.

I was living in Tucson, Arizona in the 1980’s, and my brother Greg, then in grad school, came to visit me. While floating down the Salt River in inner tubes, he sang a few Irish folks songs–drinking songs–and I was enchanted. They were funny and clever. Most of them were by The Clancy Brothers.

About the same time, I began listening to an Irish music show on the community radio station in Tucson on Sunday evenings put on by a fellow named Scott Egan. Among the bands whose songs were played regularly were The Dubliners. There were hilariously funny drinking songs, such as “7 Drunken Nights”, and sad, story songs such as “Donegal Danny”. Although Ronnie shared singing duties with Luke Kelly, it was Ronnie’s songs that I liked the best. He had a rich, gravelly baritone with a great Irish accent that I just loved.

Since my teenage years I’ve been into both rock music and quiet acoustic songs. Now I had a third love–Irish folk songs.

Today bands like Flogging Molly, which combine punk rock with Irish traditional music, are big. Flogging Molly was directly influenced by The Pogues, the first band to play and write Irish traditional music in a punk style. And The Dubliners were a huge influence on The Pogues. Without The Dubliners, there would have been no Pogues, and without The Pogues, there would have been no Flogging Molly.

Here’s a great summary of The Dubliners history:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ronnie-drew-lead-singer-of-the-dubliners-900669.html

What I found interesting in this article is that, back in the early 1960’s when The Dubliners started out, Irish pubs generally didn’t have live music. It was O’Donoghue’s Pub in Dublin that allowed Ronnie and the boys to play a little music. The Dubliners are credited with reviving Irish traditional folk music in Ireland in the 1960’s. During my last visit to Ireland in March of this year, I stopped in O’Donoghue’s for a couple of pints. Old photos of The Dubliners were all over the walls. I felt like I was on sacred ground.

In 2004 I began taking up songwriting in earnest. In 2005 I was doing my 3-days-a-week jogging around the local park, and began thinking of a melody for a song. It sounded like an Irish melody, an Irish drinking song melody, the kind of song The Dubliners would sing. While jogging, it seemed like the lines should be saying, “here’s to this, and here’s to that”. I asked myself, “ok, that’s cool, but what are we drinking to?” I didn’t want it to be the normal stuff, and I had been working on another song where I was exploring the consequences of making mistakes, and not being able to go back and undo them, but what would happen if we could go back and undo them? After working on the song off and on for 5 months, “The Screwup Song” was born.

I couldn’t have done it without you, Ronnie. Thanks, man.

-Rob Roper

Here’s a beautiful video of Ronnie singing “In the Rare Old Times”, with footage of Ronnie singing interspersed with photos of old Dublin. Damn, the tears poured down my face watching and listening this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T7OaDDR7i8

3 types of songwriters

songwriting

Being a singer-songwriter means learning three crafts: songwriting, singing, and playing an instrument. I’ve noticed a difference in songwriters’ strengths and weaknesses depending on their background:

1. the musician
2. the writer
3. the singer

I’m generalizing, of course, but here are my observations about the strengths and weakness of the three types:

1. The musician got his or her start playing other people’s songs in bands. The typical example is a male guitar player. When he begins trying to write songs, his strengths are his knowledge of music, and of course his instrument. He can easily come up with ideas for chord progressions, rhythms, etc. His weakness is with singing, unless he’s always been singer and guitar player. And he’s almost certainly going to find lyric writing difficult, since he probably never did any creative writing; he probably never read, much less, wrote poetry. (I’m in this category).

2. The writer wrote a lot of poetry, and has kept a journal for a long time. I’m going to stereotype this person as a female. She decided she wanted to put her writings to music, so she acquired a guitar somehow, but didn’t take lessons. She noodled around and came up with her own chords, which can be interesting. But due to her lack of music knowledge, the songs tend to sound the same. Being creative, she may also come up with good melodies, but she’s not a trained singer, so she doesn’t sing very loud. More likely, she copies her favorite singer rather than develop her own style. Her strength is her lyrics. She knows how to write about the senses, with imagery, and metaphor.

3. The singer’s strength, naturally, is her singing. I’m going to make my example for this category a woman also. Her weaknesses, obviously, are her musicianship and writing. She’s learned to play guitar at a basic level, so she plays simple first position chords. And her lyrics are simple and direct. But, damn, can she sing.

Our three songwriters should feel no shame about their weaknesses; we’re all beginners at some time. They should only be ashamed if they’re not willing to recognize, and work on, their weaknesses.

1. The musician needs to read poetry, and then try to write poetry. He needs to start a journal and write every day. He needs to learn how to write in a creative way; to “show me don’t tell me”. And he probably needs to take singing lessons, and practice.

2. The writer needs to take guitar (or piano) lessons. She should learn to play a bunch of cover songs by some of her favorite artists. She’ll learn composing skills from learning the cover songs. And she probably could use singing lessons also.

3. The singer should take guitar (or piano) lessons, and read and start writing poetry, and start a journal.

So what do y’all think? These stereotypes are based on real people I’ve known. Maybe I’m over-generalizing based on just a few people?

-Rob

New song – Falling into Heaven

songwriting

Here’s another experimental song I’m working on. With this one, I started with a rhythm and chord progression on my Fender strat electric guitar, then started humming a melody, and during the musical refrain section, the words “falling into heaven” just came out. I didn’t know what that meant, but I liked the phrase, since we normally think of “rising” into heaven, not “falling”.

Later, while walking, driving, and hiking–especially while hiking–I had the music in my head, and allowed myself to just open my mind and allow anything to come out, no matter how absurd, and wrote them down. Later I arranged these weird phrases into loose verses. My “editor” tried to get involved and give the song a meaning, but I tried not to let him. I wanted to keep it open to different interpretations by different people.

It’s still a rough draft, I’ll almost certainly add and change some of the lines. I recorded a rough acoustic version and put it on my myspace site.

Falling into Heaven
by Rob Roper September 1, 2008

Lost and found and lost again
That’s the way you’ve always been
Running naked with the wind
Fall down, get up, fall down again

You’re falling…
into heaven.

Go outside, talk to the trees
Hear the wisdom in the breeze
Read a story to your cat
Walk around in a silly hat

You’re falling…
into heaven.

Hitch a ride, don’t ask where
Go to work in your underwear
Lay your head down on the ground
Listen to that pretty sound

You’re falling…
into heaven.

Give your spare change to a bum
Don’t ask what he spends it on
Take a hike, go off the trail
Get too drunk and land in jail

You’re falling…
into heaven.

Lost and found and lost again
That’s the way I’ve always been
You don’t have to rescue me
It’s the way I like to be

I’m falling…
into heaven.
I’m falling, falling…
into heaven.

New song in progress – I Believe

"Rob Roper", songwriting

Lately I’ve been experimenting with unconventional lyrical and musical styles. At least their unconventional for me. Unconventional in the sense of the song structure, rhyme or lack of rhyme, and so forth. I’m also striving for lyrics where the meaning isn’t completely obvious, and could be open to different interpretations. Here’s a draft of one tentatively titled “I Believe”. The music is also somewhat unconventional, and composed on electric piano, which I haven’t done before. Another thing I like about this one is that some of the lines are very short; there’s a lot of space between lines. I’ll record it soon and post it on my myspace site.

I Believe
by Rob Roper August 31, 2008

I believe
because I need to
It exists
because it must
Don’t bring logic into this
Don’t ask me for the proof
Don’t bring logic into this
I won’t think about it
I won’t think about it
I won’t
think

I believe
we have a choice
That one’s bad
so this one must be good
Don’t say anything bad about him
Don’t say anything bad at all
Don’t say anything bad about him
I won’t hear it
I won’t hear it
I won’t
hear

I believe
because I need to

Josh Ritter’s songwriting tips

Josh Ritter, songwriting

I attended the Song School in Lyons, Colorado August 10-14. One of the instructors was Josh Ritter. Here are some points he made in his workshop, taken from my notes. In some cases, I’ve also expanded on his comments from my own experiences.

1. Why do you write? If you’re not writing obsessively and for pleasure, then why are you doing it? You should be writing because you love it, you should be compulsive and obsessive about it.

2. There’s no such thing as “Writer’s Block”. If you can’t write, then don’t. When you have something to say, you write. If you write all the time, eventually you’ll run out of ideas. So you need to take some time off. If you force it, you’ll write songs that you won’t be happy with.

My comment: I need to start recognizing when I get to this point. When it doesn’t flow, rather than try to force it, I should use my music time to improve my musicianship–learn new things on the guitar, piano or mandolin, learn songs written by others, take a singing lesson– do some of the things that I never seem to have time for. All those things will help my songwriting and performance.

3. Originality: don’t worry about it. Nothing is 100% original.

4. Cliches: never allow cliches in your songs. Our goal is to create new cliches. If you allow cliches, you’re not pushing yourself.

5. Don’t be afraid to kill your song. If it’s not working, put it in the compost, let other songs cannilabize it. If you force it, it won’t be a good song.

Another songwriter, John Common, uses the analogy of the junkyard for this. I like that analogy, too. If a song needs a carburator, go to the junkyard and take one off a discarded song.

My comment: I started learning this last Spring. My songs, “Me” and “Like a Child” used both lyrical and musical elements taken from other songs-in-progress.

6. Always keep a journal. Always record lines, ideas.

7. You don’t have to be crazy to be a songwriter. Take care of the problems in your life.

My comment: for a long time, I didn’t try to write lyrics because I thought I wasn’t weird enough. I thought songwriters were born, and they wrote songs without effort. This prejudice held me back; kept me from becoming a songwriter. Or perhaps I didn’t realize that I was weird enough to be a songwriter. 🙂 And flowing from that concept…

8. Songwriting is a craft; it’s hard work. To view yourself as an “artist” rather than a craftsman may take you down the wrong road. Songwriting is a craft, and occasionally we will make great art. Not everything you write can be great.

Josh mentioned that he typically goes through 8 or 9 drafts of a song. Then he plays it for people, and edits it some more.

To hear Josh’s music, see joshritter.com or myspace.com/joshritter

-Rob