Creating an Environment Where You Have License to Try New Things

And how creating a song is like writing a short story

It struck me as I was listening to Meloy explain his process for putting the song together just how much different forms of writing are similar. Songwriting, like writing a short story, is a kind of amalgamation and alchemy. You start with a bit of melody and riff off of that. The melody is a theme, a tone, a voice that propels a story forward. There are backbeats and drums that keep the rhythm of the language moving. Characters provide emotional thrust like lyrics. Writers steal from other artists they admire, like Meloy’s refrain that comes from Yo La Tengo’s “Barnaby Hardly Working.” (On a side note, yes, this is really a thing. I was recently at Readercon where an audience member brought up a line from a Sofia Samatar that had direct correlations to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, and I was like, yep that is a direct reference.)

At one point in describing the process, Meloy says “We had created an environment where we had license to try new things.” I think about this a lot as I’m moving into a space where I write more regularly and I’ve got a bit of a style now. I think about that idea of environment. Where you put yourself in your creative life can make a huge impact on your…

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