Music moves us, physically and emotionally. It gets our toes tapping, our fingers snapping, and our hair flipping (if we’re channeling Beyoncé, that is).
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As writers, some of us rely on a trusted playlist in the background, to coax the muse. Others prefer silence. I fall somewhere in the middle, listening to songs only to warm me up. And by warming up, I don’t mean my pipes. I mean, to get my fingers on keyboard, ‘cuz trust me, no one wants to hear me butcher a melody. After listening to several songs, I turn off the music and find that I’m ready to write (in silence, my preferred way to coalesce my thoughts).
I often put my iPhone music library in shuffle mode before I write, to surprise myself with songs I may not have listened to in months, sometimes years. The other day, my shuffle mode served up “40 Dogs” by Bob Schneider.
YouTube Music includes the song’s lyrics. I took a screen shot of the tab where you can find lyrics (red box, upper right, as well as the play button, lower left).
Bet you ten bucks that Bob studied poetry at some point, but then again, who knows? I clearly don’t know the guy—but would love to meet him, if only to tell him that his lyrics are clever as hell and that his melody turned into a major earworm for me.
I love the unexpected ways he uses color in his lyrics to precisely describe not only an action (his example of a cop’s sideways glance), but the resulting feeling his companion’s company stirs in him. The connection he makes is unique, completely unexpected, and memorable.
Take a minute and pull up his lyrics from the YouTube Music page. Listen to his song. Then tell me if you did as I did: tried to visualize the way comic book cops throw sidelong glances. Think of the exaggerated drawings and facial expressions. The “POW!” and “BAM!” that always shows up in speech bubbles.
Are you visualizing the cop? The set of his jaw? The question in his eyes?
Has someone you’ve known, maybe not a cop but a friend, ever thrown a glance at you like that? For what reason? How does that memory make you feel?
Bob goes on to compare his companion to “The Wizard of Oz” movie. Remember that part, when Dorothy crosses the door threshold from her sepia toned house into the colorful, magical land of Oz? It’s another unexpected gem that makes Bob’s lyrics memorable. Poetic.
He goes on to write about the color of a fight. Umm … more, please! He urges his companion to go out with him, presumably on the town, to let loose. He mashes careful and crazy behavior together, and man, I want to be riding shotgun!
And, I want to write poetic fragments like that. We all do, as writers.
I took a poetry workshop two years ago—my first attempt at writing poems—and the instructor suggested I try assigning color to actions and feelings. Listening to “40 Dogs” again the other day, it renewed yet again my appreciation for when writers (songwriters, too!) introduce unexpected phrasings into a piece. The result is often a song chart-topper (or, in our writerly corner of the world, gets an immediate Yes from a literary journal or mainstream publication).
You can “meet” the poetry workshop instructor who offered me that advice (leading to several of my poems getting published that use color in unexpected ways). I recently interviewed Claire Oleson for the WOW! Markets newsletter to celebrate National Poetry Month in April.
What unexpected things have you tried with your writing lately? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Ann Kathryn Kelly writes from New Hampshire's Seacoast region. https://annkkelly.com
