I have a new song out! I thought I would write about it here (and do the same for all my future releases) because, you know, songs don’t just appear. Songs don’t spontaneously write themselves without the aid of blood, sweat, tears, inspiration and hours of research. Or do they?
Actually, yes they sometimes do! When the Coen brothers were writing and planning their cinematic masterpiece Miller’s Crossing they got lost and exhausted halfway through the process. Too many subplots, characters and angles. So they took a break, and during that break out plopped Barton Fink, another masterpiece! I don’t know what they think about that but I like to think that the more we try to direct our creativity in a deliberate way towards what we think are good ideas, the more there is a need for your creativity to pull things from your subconscious and do what IT thinks is a good idea. In other words your creativity is not a tool for you to use as you see fit, it is a capricious but benevolent goddess. And you are its slave.
(Jeez, Charlie, you’re writing about a tune – lighten up!)
OK, so over the past year or so I have written a few songs about specific things – mostly the English Civil War (see 21 Summers and Face on a Wall, and come to my gigs if you want to hear others!) – and I Know My Heart is my Barton Fink moment. It started with that first line coming into my head out of nowhere (“Would you consider it crass if I yelled like a drunken ass?”), and I kept yanking on that thread until the rest came out. I was surprised by certain lines at first, but then they settled in and made perfect sense to me once I thought about them.
So what do I think it’s about? Well, I set out in life to do certain things and be certain people, and I kind of failed. The plans got derailed by bumps in the road. But do you know what? Those bumps are better. They are the real things. You can’t plan too much – just strike out in a particular direction and see what you find. The more you absorb the bumps, the more you learn to ignore your head and know your heart.
But that’s just one theory.
Charlie Williams 