Writing and Rewriting, Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman continued revising his masterpiece Leaves of Grass throughout his career. I used to think that was cheating, he wasn’t capturing the essence of now. As his mood changed, as events happened, as he grew older, wiser, more set in his ways, wouldn’t this change the original inspiration and aura of the literary work? As I’ve grown older, hopefully wiser, definitely more set in my ways, I have flip-flopped with the cunning of the slipperiest, political spinster.
I have a massive musical backlog that I am revisiting. Some are completed songs, some are scraps and hooks. While the bones and structure of the song may be OK, I ponder the lyrics and think to myself, what on Earth was I thinking, what a dope, who wrote that, did I used think/feel that? My tenses may have been out of whack, phrases disconnected Maybe, I thought, I could get away with that too.
Look at the Stone Temple Pilots, I dig them quite a bit, but lyrically it’s a schizophrenic mish-mash of things that don’t make any sense. So like Walt, I edit, I tweak, I think and rethink, to make the song everything that it can be. I’m slowly learning the finer points of the “art” of songwriting.
