Songwriters On Songwriting: Jimmy Webb

“Could other things be done? Are there other worlds to conquer? Are there other things to discover? Are there other things to explore? That’s the way I took your question. I think there’s a whole universe of possibilities out there.”

I wrote my first song when I was 14 years old. Over the years, I’ve composed hundreds of songs. It was that interest — music — that led me to take a year off from pursuing a doctorate and led me down the circuitous path that has been the rest of my life.

I don’t write songs much 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?

Each day this week at this time, I will post insight from a songwriter about their craft in the hope their words may inspire you as a writer.

Today: Jimmy Webb.

Does working in the existing song structures seem limiting?

It feels boring because I know exactly what’s going to happen next. And I think that what we’ve done as an industry is to ingrain these ideas into the public over a certain number of generations now where they’re completely shocked when anything happens except for a verse or a chorus. Completely shocked! They don’t know what to think!

It’s a very limiting thing. It’s sort of stupid in a way, because it’s taken for granted that that’s what a song is. I’m not going to go out on my next album and write a lot of free-form tunes. I’m not necessarily going to try to break that ground all on my own. I’ve had enough problems selling my solo albums over the years. But the original question was: Could other things be done? Are there other worlds to conquer? Are there other things to discover? Are there other things to explore? That’s the way I took your question. I think there’s a whole universe of possibilities out there.

Interesting to swap out the word “screenplay” for the word “song,” and “movie” for “album” in Webb’s comments. Certainly there are patterns and rhythms to stories a la Beginning, Middle, and End, The Hero’s Journey, and so forth. But when those ‘structures’ squelch creativity, we get formula. That should not be our aspiration.

Rather why not ask these questions of ourselves when we write an original screenplay: Could other things be done? Are there other worlds to conquer? Are there other things to discover? Are there other things to explore?

Here is Jimmy Webb performing the hit song ‘MacArthur Park.’

Go here to listen to an hour-long interview with Jimmy Webb conducted by Simon Barber and Brian O’Connor, a Liverpool based songwriting team known as Sodajerker.

For more of the Songwriters On Songwriting series, go here.