The melody has the DNA for the whole song in it. It's the figuring that out that jazzes me more than fame or whatever slight amount of fame I might have. That's not it. The big motivator is figuring it out. I still get a kick out of that.
I was thinking about what you were saying about the decisions people make in their career as to what kind of a success they want to have, or what they consider to be success. When you started off in music, where did you think you would be now? Have you achieved what you thought you wanted to achieve?
I don't know that I had a vision of it other than I enjoyed it as a kid. I've played guitar since I was five. I enjoyed it as a kid. It was fun. It was interesting, challenging, and totally engaging, and it remains exactly that. I think that's success. I wanted to be totally absorbed by it and I remain totally absorbed by it.
I think it's a wonderful way to spend your life. I remember a bass player friend of mine said, "It's a great way to spend your life - totally unconscious." [laughter] You just played your whole life. You just were having fun, unselfconscious like a kid in the sandbox. That's a great way to live your life. That's a very fortunate way to live your life. I feel very lucky with that. So, I think I did get what I wanted.
Going back to the blog thing, a touring songwriter is almost like a blog, other than that you sing it. It's a song blog, really. Whatever you're thinking, you write a song and you play it in front of people. It's kind of Amish blogging. Being a performing songwriter is Amish blogging, because you write it and then you have to go travel and play it in front of people. It doesn't get out two seconds after you write it, it gets out that night, or two days later in St. Louis or Billings or Seattle. It's a kind of blogging.
The way music is distributed is changing, so you could blog your music, in a way. Like what you did with "My Strange Nation" by making it available on your website. There is a musician named Jonathan Coulton who writes really witty, funny songs that are very well put together. He has this podcast called Thing a Week where he makes a new song available every week for free, and you can buy it from his website if you want to support the music. I think that there are multiple ways of getting your music out there now that don't necessarily require having to tour.
Article comments
1 - Tracy
GREAT interview here with Susan Werner. I absolutely LOVE her music, particularly the jazzy songs and the new gospel-y songs. I love that y'all got into a discussion about religion in America; it's really cool to hear where she's coming from on these new tunes. I'm a recent divinity school graduate and while my faith means a great deal to me, I fluctuate between a kind of seriousness and earnestness and a kind of subversive desire to shake things up a bit. ;o) A healthy skepticism and doubt, if you will, combined with a deep sense of faithfulness. This is what I love about Susan's new songs in this genre, and I think they're really going to resonate with a LOT of folks in the church around the country, probably more than she realizes. Most of the folks I know from the types of churches I've been involved in have just this kind of perspective... a wilingness to laugh at oneself and be critical of something while still being loyal to it. It's nice to have some music that expresses that complexity of thought and emotion.
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this and wanted to thank you for taking the time to write it and share it! :o)
Grace and peace,
Tracy