Go Into The Story Resource: Songwriters on Songwriting
From David Byrne to Brian Wilson, Joan Baez to Suzanne Vega… wisdom about the creative process from a musical perspective.
From David Byrne to Brian Wilson, Joan Baez to Suzanne Vega… wisdom about the creative process from a musical perspective.
On May 16, 2023, Go Into The Story turned 15 years old — you can read the very first blog post here. I led with this paragraph:
Welcome to Go Into The Story! Right now, it’s nothing but a humble, threadbare blog, but I hope it will evolve into an active resource for aspiring screenwriters, as well as a community for anyone interested in storytelling and the creative life.
And evolve it did! To the point where it was recently named “Best of the Best” Scriptwriting Website in the 20th Annual Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list.
To celebrate 15 years of blogging about screenwriting, writing, Hollywood, movies, TV, and the creative life, each day in May, I’m going to feature a piece of Go Into The Story trivia, plus a writing resource you can find in the site’s archives. This is not an exercise in self-congratulations so much as I figured readers could use some tips about how to best use the site. With — to date — over 100 archive topics, there is a LOT of content here. Hopefully, these posts this month will clue in more recent followers and remind long-time readers about resources you can use to facilitate deepening your understanding of the writing craft.
Today’s Go Into The Story resource: I wrote my first song when I was fourteen years old. Over the years, I’ve composed hundreds of songs. It was that interest — music — that compelled me to take a year off from pursuing a Ph.D. and led me down the circuitous path that has been the rest of my life.
I rarely write songs nowadays, more focused on screenplays and writing about writing, but I can’t help but think at least some of who I am as a writer derives from all that time studying and composing songs.
Which is why I say that one of my favorite ‘screenwriting’ books is “Songwriters on Songwriting,” a collection of interviews by Paul Zollo with some of the great songwriters of our time, from Mose Allison to Frank Zappa. For what are songs but stories?
Here are some posts I’ve done over the years featuring interview excerpts from notable songwriters and my thoughts on what each offers as potential takeaway from screenwriters and fiction writers.
If you’ve found any interviews with songwriters you think would be worth discussing, please post a link in comments. I know at some point, I’ll revisit the subject. So much of songwriting is about structure… just like screenwriting.
Each day this month, I am taking the opportunity to thank you for supporting Go Into The Story. I’d love to hear from you in RESPONSES. When did you start following the blog? What are your favorite features? And as always, if you have any suggestions, feel free to suggest away.