|
|
Yvette in English - DAVID CROSBY
From Songs in the Rough by Stephen Bishop 1996 ©
Q: You have so much knowledge of harmony. Did you take choir in
school?
A: Yeah, I did, but I didn't study or anything. It mostly comes from
the music around the house. My mom played a lot?a ton? of classical
music. And that was clear back in the 78s era. Then, when the
first LPs came out, the ten-inch LPs, we got a player and my mom
had Josh White, Odetta, and the Weavers. But what I really remember
was "Dream" by the Everlys. That was the first thing that came
across the radio and fucking floored me.
Q: When yon sit down to write songs now, how is it different now
from the way you wrote back in the sixties?
A: Oh, it's a lot different now, man. For one thing, I can't legislate
writing. I can't say, "Okay, I'm going to sit down and write."
It doesn't work.
Q: Do you write from a title?
A: No I mean, I might. I write from whatever the fuck?sometimes it's
the music, sometimes it's the words, sometimes it's both at the
same time, sometimes it's just a scrap and sometimes it's the
whole thing and it's like automatic writing and obviously some
other part of me has been considering it for a while because it
all comes out in one blurb and I haven't ever thought any of those
things before, consciouslY But some part of me has, because I
just write it down.
Q: Do you write Iyrics out first and then work on the melody?
A: It happens every which way. But lately I've noticed a couple of
things. One is, very often it happens right when my verbal-crystallization
level is falling asleep?the imaginative level of the mind to make
those longer jumps, you know? Get a hold of the steering wheel
for a second, before you cack, you know. I don't understand how
that works, but that's when stuff jumps out of me that I didn't
plan on at all. An author friend of mine, William Gibson?he wrote
Neuromancer?said, "Yeah, that happens all the time, we call it
the elves taking over the workshop. That's why all writers have
a pad of paper by their bed." The other major change lately has
been working on the computer on the lyrics, which makes me a much
better editor, because you can cut and paste and cut and paste.
You can edit yourself, try different editings of a song, stack
them up next to each other, and see how they feel.
Q: But theres no rough draft. That's the problem.
A: Yeah, there is. I almost always write it out hand,written at first,
then I enter it into the computer. I don't write on the computer,
just work on it there.
Q: We're using "Yvette in English" here.
A: Well, "Yvette in English" is pretty good. What I did was I faxed
her (Joni Mitchell), a set of Iyrics that I wrote in Japan, and
then she just ran with it.
Q: You guys didn't just sit in a room and trade ideas: "How about
this? How about that?"
A: No. She was pretty excited. She called me up two and three times
an hour to say "How about this" and "How about that," and I would
say, "That's fucking wonderful." I've always loved co-writing.
I've done it with tons of people, man, and I love doing it. Everybody
else is very defensive about it because they're looking to have
the publishing and they're looking to make all the money, and
I don't fucking care. I love writing the songs.
Q: There's also a social side to it, too?you go over, have dinner,
hang out.... Do you have songs that you start and get excited
about and then decide to finish it the next day?and then the next
day yon're not as excited about it?
A: Well, yeah. I have lots of them, but they're in my book or in
my computer. I have lots of unfinished ones in my book, and lots
of scraps. What Joni told me was, if you have two words in a row
that you like, write them down.
END
|
|