BMI Blog #4

17th October, 2023

Whew. This will be a long entry. It’s a twisty little dance throwing two creatives/strangers together and saying “write a song now”. To protect the innocent, and because I’m a weeb, I’m going to use Naruto characters as aliases for my BMI collaborators. For this first assignment, it’s me and Ten-Ten (please don’t look for a deeper meaning to my choice of characters). Ten-Ten and I get along well, but we have pretty different tastes. We finally landed on a song we are both proud of, and which was very well-received, but there were some dark days there. Here, with the equanimity of hindsight, are some bloody episodes on the way to writing it, and the lessons learnt thereby.

Lyric or music first? I like music first, and it seems like the pantheon of musical writing teams worked this way. But a major reason for joining the workshop was to push myself out of my comfort zone, so when Ten-Ten asked for a lyric first I went for it. Dunno if this a mistake, but usually when I have trouble finishing a song with a collaborator, I can trace it back to me not speaking my mind. Since the assignment was to write a song where the character wasn’t saying what they really meant, you’d think I would nail it first try. Anyway, I wrote up a lyric and it looked like this (the words in parentheses were meant to be sung by a second singer, verbalising the subtext of the primary singer).

The Subtext Song

It’s been... interesting since we met

(You’re a dickhead)

We’ve said some things I think we both regret

(You’re a dickhead)

And you deserve somebody who

likes you for you, you know I do,

It’s just I’m going through some things

(like you, and how you’re a dickhead)

I think our lives are at a different stage

(You’re a baby)

And lately we’ve been on a different page

(An ugly baby)

But there’s someone out there who’ll

Be that lucky person you’ll

One day make so happy

(Yeah! Me! When you die!)

I feel awful (No I don’t)

Gonna miss you (No I won’t)

Maybe I was just holding you back? (What? No! How?)

Are you okay? (I don’t care)

Stay in touch (Don’t you dare)

I’m so glad we can still be friends (Please! Go! Now!)

You deserve someone who’ll treat you right

(You’re a snake)

You deserve someone who’ll squeeze you tight

(Like a snake)

And though it sounds cliché,

One last thing I want to say,

The cliché’s true, it isn’t you

It’s me!

(You’re a baby!)

It’s me!

(You’re a snake!)

It’s me!

(You’re a dickhead!)

Not particularly funny, and worse, it misses the entire purpose of a subtext assignment. Moreover, I really doubt we could have fit this into the stipulated 32 bar AABA- another drawback of going lyric first. But I wasn’t too concerned until I heard Ten-Ten’s first cracks at a melody for it. I pictured it as a pretty simple song (I vaguely based it on “The Internet is for Porn”), but what she came back with was more dissonant and complex than I felt was appropriate. This is where I should have said something like “that’s really not my style”, but being non-confrontational and way too concerned about not hurting other people’s feelings I nodded along and began working on an entirely new song to avoid having a difficult conversation (I know, I know). Here's song number two, sung by an older man giving an extremely generous sales pitch of his car.  

She’s a Real Beaut

This car to me is priceless

But the time has come to sell

Breathe it in, she’s got that (coughs, splutters) ...“history” smell

Like an old musty coat

With a hint of dying fruit

Yessir, she’s a real beaut

She’s a real beaut

I see that you’re admiring

That there hole in the floor

No sir, they just don’t make ‘um like that anymore

Like a glass bottom boat

and it ventilates to boot!

Yessir, she’s a real beaut,

She’s a real beaut.

Awful lotta memories in this car...

My daddy taught me how to drive stick in here…

Awful lotta memories in this car...

Me and Johnny stole that keg and we got sick in here...

Well, if you don’t want her

I suppose you can pass

Gawd, my old lady’s gonna beat my sorry ass

Though it ain’t worth a groat

I don’t want no substitute...

Yessir she’s a real beaut

My first car...

She’s a real beaut, she’s a real beaut.

A rambling mealfight to cram into 32 bars, but at least this time I let the subtext be subtext. And, having owned almost exclusively lemons, I had plenty of experience to draw on. But, a new lyric was a band-aid for the real problem, and sure enough, what I had pictured as a very simple number with perhaps a country feel came back feeling musically wrong. We got together in person and tried to find a middle ground but it became clear we had pretty different ideas about the how the character should sound, and the session ground to a cordial but unproductive standstill.

The deadline was getting near and we were nowhere, so we decided to try music first. Here’s where I fucked up. I completely forgot the lesson I learned from my botched NYU audition. A brief aside about that: They paired the applicants up to write a song over two days, and I sent off a bunch of ideas to my collaborator, Orochimaru (read into this choice of character all you want). There were a couple ideas I thought were clearly stronger than the rest, but I wanted to give lots of options, so I included a few half-baked ideas. Dumb. Sure enough, she chose the idea I liked the least and we proceeded to write The Worst Song Ever. Lesson: Don’t set off on a road you don’t wanna go down.

But I did just that. Wordy, stressed out, dissonant, disjointed songs don’t really appeal to me. I enjoy them when they’re really top-notch like “Franklin Shepard Inc” and “Not Getting Married Today”, but it’s totally not my bag. Ten-Ten likes them though. And in the interest of getting the damn thing done, we decided to try a song called “Have a Wonderful Day”, about a call centre employee taking a bunch of abusive calls and having to respond nicely while carrying a clear subtext of “fuck you I hate this job”. I liked it in theory, then the music came and it was everything I feared the BMI sound would be. Also, on reflection I didn’t think we’d be able to properly tell that story in 32 bars. But it was my fault, I shouldn’t have encouraged it when I sensed it was just going to be a waste of Ten-Ten’s time. At this point I cooked up a new lyric about someone asking their date up for tea (subtext: sex).

Comin’ up for Tea

Midnight. Not a sound

‘cept for me fishin’ round

For my key

...Are you comin’ up for tea?

Our first date has flown

Time is up, but it don’t

Gotta be

...Are you comin’ up for tea?

I got three different kinds

I got two matching mugs

I got one dirty sofa

Couldn’t you go for-

A biscuit or scone

Watching whatever’s on

The TV?

...Are you comin’ up for tea?

This would fit 32 bars, and I would’ve fixed up the imperfect rhymes, but neither of us loved it. Cue the dark days. Ten-Ten liked what she had written for “Have a Wonderful Day” and was getting anxious about the deadline and frustrated with me lobbing in new ideas. No lyrics to supply for “Have a Wonderful Day”, because apart from the title, I didn’t write any. I knew I’d fucked up, and I didn’t want to give that idea any more oxygen. Eventually, she sent me a logic file of a bunch of different music ideas, I set lyrics to one and sent back a recording of what would eventually be the song we presented. Some excerpts from her response:

//Oh God//I hate this idea//I shouldn’t have even sent it//What musical idea did you like second best???//That chord progression is sooooooo cliché//I’m sorry. Just so cliché//I’ll listen when I’m off work but right now it makes me want to die//I mean like jab my eyes out and set myself on fire//I sent you sooooo many ideas//Nothing else is acceptable to you???//

At this point, I turned off my phone and went for a walk. We’d been communicating over whatsapp and I’d started to develop a Pavlovian stress reaction anytime I saw a whatsapp notification. To reiterate, Ten-Ten and I get along well in person, but we lost a lot of that warmth over text. I think we started to view each other as obstacles rather than assets to completing this team assignment. When I stepped back to think about it, it was clear that the real obstacles were time, the inherent challenge of synthesising clashing styles, and the fear of public failure in front of our peers. Besides, she had just set off on a road she didn’t want to go down, and how am I supposed to get mad at a mistake I make so often myself?

So, we scheduled Judgement Day. A full day set aside to finally lock in a song. While I preferred the newest song, and she preferred “Have a Wonderful Day” we resolved to work on a middle ground neither of us particularly liked or hated; “She’s a Real Beaut”. I got to the Dramatists Guild early and prepared for what I thought was going to be a very rough day. Already that morning I had woken up to seventeen messages, one of which labelled our collaboration a “dictatorship”. I responded with my perspective, and pointed out I’d set lyrics to her music and respected it when she vetoed the idea. Ten-Ten sent me thirteen messages about half an hour before our meeting but I just couldn’t bring myself to look at them.

So I was very surprised when she came in and wanted to work on my new idea (recall “jab my eyes out and set myself on fire”). Apparently, she hadn’t realised I’d set lyrics to her music and thought I’d gone and rewritten her melody (which says something about my behaviour in all this that she’d believe I would do that). Her first listen had been at a short break in her stressful dayjob in the middle of our terse Whatsapp thread and hadn’t properly heard it. She’d given it another listen that morning and decided it had potential (hence the thirteen messages). It turned out to be great day, and we actually found the rest of the song together in the room. Here is the lesson: give ideas the chance to shine. Be in a peaceful environment and mood before you crack open that file.

So, here’s the song. The length of this entry maybe warrants a climactic masterpiece, but it’s just a straightforward comedy song about an Australian guy adjusting to life in New York:

The Greatest City in the World

Wake to the car horns hornin’

Headline’s a heatwave warnin’

It’s Sunday mornin’ in the Greatest City in the World

Outside, the asphalt’s steamin’

Guy on the subway screamin’

He smells like semen. It’s the Greatest City in the World

Lovin’ these hobos!

Lovin’ these rats!

Love spending big bucks on broom closet flats!

Who needs the ocean?

Who needs the sand?

Here comes a new friend with a knife in his hand!

Stabs me and off he’s flyin’

(Nice pool of blood to lie in!)

At least I’m dyin’ in the the Greatest City in the-

Hey call a medic! It’s the Greatest City in the-

Thank God I’m dyin’ in the Greatest City in the World!