“These days” is a sweeping way to describe a big and detailed musical landscape and/or time of music tastes and charts. The charts themselves are no longer a reflection of the music tastes of the general populace anyway, being so differently defined by steaming and with physical formats being almost deliberately frogmarched off the landscape by those who wish physical formats to disappear completely. The adult listener- more receptive to properly constructed, heartfelt and skilfully expressed songs, has not yet become completely accustomed to the streaming world.
The main characteristic I see dominating songwriting (even by so-called singer-songwriters) is the number of “writers” involved in the creation of many contemporary songs; sometimes six or more names, one of which might be the artist who may or may not have been in the room(s) when it was written. Songs written by committee are liable to attract criticism for not being the soulful or heartfelt thoughts of one person. This charge can of course be levelled at two-person songwriting teams where one is the lyricist and one, the composer, but they aren’t accused of insincerity or conveyor belt assembly. Even though Elton John is usually singing the thoughts of Bernie Taupin, - (and always of others than himself) - we know Taupin is a poet well worthy of the excellence of Elton’s musical composition, and that their partnership is based on mutual creative buoyancy, even if they aren’t Elton’s own words. So many great songs have been written by partnerships of specialists (Bacharach and David, Rogers and Hammerstein, Lennon and McCartney) but my cynicism about big songwriting teams also leads me to doubt the sincerity of the some of the content. I’m not going to name names, but the production line where somebody provides the beats, two other people create the melodic top line and others contribute to the words makes me wonder whether the song would ever have been written if it had just come from a thought deeply felt by a writer or artist. So many great writers are able, all by themselves, to express their own feelings in songs, and do it in a way that might not even say anything new but does say it in a new and powerful, original way.
That said, songs tend, either deliberately or not, to hold a mirror up to society, or are at least be affected by what is going on in the world. It can be done literally and overtly like the ban the bomb songs of the flower power era, or more subtly and organically just by reflecting the feeling in the air when things are not going too well in the (or their) world. The social media generation is experiencing strongly articulated stress daily. The aggression present in politics and in religious and racial tensions are no greater today than they have always been, but they are thrust more often and more directly into the faces of people. This is bound to reflect in our songs, just as the blues was born in the Deep South of America when slavery was making the world an almost intolerable place for many people, and World War two produced songs like “We’ll Meet Again” for very obvious reasons.
MELANCHOLY
For my own part, as a writer of both words and music, I wake up each morning a little depressed for many reasons, but most of them are external, worldwide reasons that have an almost unconscious and quietly wearying effect on me. I find it hard to write a depressing song though. I don’t see it as something I am here to do. I have written about death (in “Bright Eyes”) but in such a way that it hopefully brings forth an emotion and a sense of wondering that people can think of as beautiful in their own way. I’ve written about desperation in love (”The Closest Thing To Crazy”) which I have found many people identify with on a deeply emotional level. Some people write about their own sadness; when I thought I was about to lose the girl I eventually married 34 years ago, I wrote three songs, all about those very feelings (and all of which became top ten hits).
But I have been lucky, in that those emotions could just as easily be felt by anyone today as they could have been a few years ago by me when I wrote them, and my style of writing is not of any particular era. I have never been fashionable, the upside of which is that it is hard to define a moment when one goes out of fashion. Melancholy is a sweet and sad feeling that is quite a distance away from depression. Most of my own work - even that which was centred around the Wombles – has been described as having a melancholic element. It must just be present in me, because it isn’t a reflection of what is happening around me in the world, at least not very often. I do not use my songs to express anger or disgust. I have no explanation as to why that is. Perhaps I’m just not angry or disgusted, - but there are plenty of things to be angry or unhappy about in the world, and so that can’t be the reason.
There are plenty of deeply felt, darkly emotional songs around. Often the six person writing teams are just talented enablers who help to express a raw emotion felt by one talented artist. Obviously in other cases the machine just sounds like a machine. And maybe that’s what you get in those cases – a kind of industrial songwriting sausage machine. “Committees” of songwriters to express collective anger , distaste, blame, hatred, whether or not driven by, elevated by or spoiled by love or its absence . Maybe multiple writers are the way to express a more communal view.
Call me old fashioned. I love writing songs but I need to feel something and be driven by the challenge to express it in my own way, even if it’s a commission for or about fictitious character in a movie. Melancholy makes the world go round.