No Sweat.

It's occurred to me on more than one occasion that a big part of being the kind of person that pulls stuff out of thin air, whether music is your thing or painting or whatever, is recognizing exactly what it is you want to conceptually achieve and then putting it out of your mind before you start.

Am I suggesting some kind of rulebook? Not so much in the writing but in the way the head is prepared for it, yes. With songwriting there are techniques that can at least stop you writing really badly, but I mean achievement in serving your initial inspiration or idea without being to overt or anal about it. It sounds like a paradox, to know what you want to do but avoid that knowledge as you do it. It's the place inbetween those two ideas where the good stuff happens.

Stravinsky once spoke of composition as 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration or words to that effect. Perhaps the ideal place is one where neither of those two things appear to be present in the doing of the deed. It can happen, rarely for me, but it does seem like people do their best work when it's effortless. I don't mean like it's dictated or channeled or any of that bollocks you hear about, but brought about in such a way that your ego has as little as possible to do with it. (That counts out all the first-person confessional guys doesn't it?)

So going by that it seems like writing good songs requires you to do..... well...... nothing. Maybe I'm nuts, but as the man who had the mishap on the fourth floor of the molasses factory once said, it's my storey and I'm sticking to it.