THE SONGS I STOLE AND THE SONGS I THOUGHT I STOLE

As a failed professional musician, I don’t have much problem with stealing pieces of songs from other people. In fact, Sinners Repent started largely as an effort to rip-off of a Greensboro NC band called Health, but none of my friends there ever respond to my requests for their old recordings, thwarting that endeavor. Our song "100,000" borrows extensively and purposely from Magnetic Fields’ “100,000 Fireflies”. The reasons behind this plagiarism is (1) I support my lack of talent with the talent of others, (2) by playing an overdone variety of rock’n’roll, I imagine that pretty much everything worthwhile has already been done, and that "ripping off" is the foundation on which we built this city anyway. Every so often a truly excellent band synthesizes their sound from utterly transparent influences – like Nirvana or Arcade Fire – and I admire that, (3) I am a product of the P. Diddy era of songwriting, (4) I think that most mediocre artists tend to credit themselves with too much talent and originality (often inversely proportional to their actual talent, though I don't think it works in reverse – Peter Gabriel strikes me as a guy who thinks pretty highly of himself and should) and I’m trying to balance their self-satisfaction of other with my own sense of worthlessness (which is itself a mask for my own general sense of feeling [OK / but not spectacular / but not actually that bad] about myself).

I'm gonna open a window into my "process" here and tell you: I’m having a problem with a new song. I’d been demoing a few versions of it. The initial demo – a 90-second version done in Garageband, all mumbled words and elegant simplicity – still sounds the best: a garage sale nylon-string guitar and spooky vocals. Re-recording it has been a challenge - but mostly I’ve been struggling with the fact that the verse melody bears significant resemblance to that of another artist. A tiny little indie artist. Someone I’m actually acquainted with. Not so well that I could called them up and say “hey, I’m ripping off your song, is that cool?”, and they’d say “Yeah, just make sure I get my percentage of the royalties,” and then we’d laugh about what an awesome joke that is at the expense of our music careers. On one hand, my song actually sounds like two of the songs on this artist’s record – their two songs have very similar melodies. So they're ripping themselves off to begin with. Listening to their recording I actually can’t quite figure out which song I’m actually ripping off more. One the other hand, I pretty much can't escape the influence.

So I’ve stopped writing the song – for now. The chorus is good and complete and the lyrics are mostly done. It’s really just a matter of figuring out how the verse should go. The song really doesn’t depend on the verse – the chorus is the key, which isn’t always the case. I’m probably capable of tweaking the verse melody to the point that its not an obvious variation of this other artist’s song. (I’m hesitant to directly ID the artist or songs, because I suspect the fingerprints will be pretty obvious, if you know where to listen – but its not Tom Petty).

I had wanted to finish the song quickly – because its mellow and lovely and would be a nice coda/bookend for the EP we’re currently recording – pretty much entirely "rock" songs. It would be a nice touch, but its not necessary. When I first started writing it, I thought I’d record it with some friends in New York this summer. But then the lyrics and tone of the song came quickly and I hatched the plan to shoehorn it into our tight recording schedule. In the end, I think it’s the wrong choice. It’ll be a good song, and I want to give it the chance to grow up right.

I'm trying not to rush things, and I'm trying not to stress. My wife is writing her graduate thesis, so there's enough stress in our house. I won't be getting much sympathy with the lament "I'm just having a hard time finishing this song before my weekend-warrior rock band goes into the studio... aarrgh! How's the 120-page paper coming?"