In October 2016, Owen, Owen's sister (now my wife), and I crowded into the front row at 1 Longfellow Square in Portland, Maine to hear Langhorne Slim and the Law. Langhorne is one of our favorite musicians and a significant influence on the music that we write today. At one point in his set, Langhorne gave an introduction to "Song for Sid," a song that he had written about his grandfather passing away. He said that some songs come easy and some songs come hard. He told the crowd that he had taken his guitar out to his porch and wrote that song in one go, but that he had also labored over other songs for many years. Sometimes a song clicks right away and sometimes it takes a while to piece together the right ingredients to make the song what you want it to be. Owen and I had not yet started to write songs together when we saw Langhorne play at Longfellow, but his words ring so true as we embrace this musical journey that is Tree Streets.
Owen and I have been engaged in a substantial songwriting effort for the past year or so. Our constant back and forth text messages are filled with new songs, lyric ideas, and even just little snippets of instrumentation that may make a cool addition to a current, past, or future song. He sends me whatever he has come up with. I send him whatever I've cooked up, no matter how truly bad it is. It's an ongoing creative outlet where emotions can be explained, bad days can be dumped, and struggles can be put into words. Owen and I have recorded seven songs at the time that I write this post. However, we have between twenty and thirty other songs that we have sifted through to find those seven. Some of those songs have taken months to write, rewrite, change chords, change melody, and rewrite again. Some of those songs have come into their own in the span of a few days. Our newly released song, "Meant to Be" was one of the quick ones. Owen wrote the song on a Tuesday, sent it to me on Wednesday, we practiced it on Friday, and recorded it on Sunday. Other songs, like "Fathers and Brothers," took longer to come to full form. Dozens of our songs have stayed on the studio floor. And that's ok. The most important part of this journey for us, and for any person looking to be songwriter or even just needing a creative outlet to funnel themselves, is simply to keep writing.
Now, I am not a highly trained or educated musician. I know some guitar chords, I can stumble my way across a bass fretboard, and I can passably pluck a mandolin and a tenor banjo for a lay person. I had never tried to write a song until I listened to Townes Van Zandt's "Lefty and Pancho" for the first time a couple years ago. It's one of the great country-folk songs about the adventures of a couple of Mexican bandits. I instantly connected with the storytelling style of the song and have come to realize that it is one of the song styles that I love the most with songs including Lefty Frizzell's "Long Black Veil," Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Boy Named Sue," Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open," and Bob Seger's "Turn the Page," and "Roll me Away." Owen was in the midst of writing a string of decidedly emo songs about love and loss, and I felt the urge to put a novel-ish story song together. So I sat down and came up with a tune about a western desperado named Dusty Boots and his blonde-haired savior from a Sheriff's hanging, the barmaid Anne Marie. It's not a good song. It has the plot intricacies and emotional impact of a mid-season Lone Ranger episode. But writing that first song was an amazing creative release. Every song you write, no matter its end viability as a recorded product, is a worthwhile creative exercise. Every song is a building block towards a better song and being a more developed creator. Owen and I keep putting our pens to paper and fingers to strings to write new material. We send whatever we come up with to the other, whether it is destined for a future album or not. The creative benefits and the collaboration make us better musicians and Tree Streets a better band.
We encourage all people of any musical ability to write a song. Any song. Simple or complex. Slow or fast. Nuanced or blunt. Easy or hard. Write it in a day or write it over a lifetime. It doesn't matter. Every song is a channel for creative thought, emotions, politics, feelings, hopes, regrets, stories, happiness, and sadness. Share it with the world or keep it to yourself. Let it be a creation of your entire making. There may be a song like it somewhere else, but this one is yours. We're all at least a little bit creative at our core. Let it be a chance to broaden your horizons and try something new.
As has been often said, you only need three chords and the truth.
- J