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Forgetting your own songs
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Subject: Forgetting your own songs From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Jul 08 - 03:26 AM Had a strange experience yesterday. This young man came to see me. He'd phoned up beforehand and there was this casstte in is parents collection that I'd made twenty odd years ago - could I help him out with how o to play the guitar intro of one of my songs. I said , sure - come ad seeme. When he got here - he'd done such a nice thing. He'd made the cassette up into a cd - made a jewel case cover from the old label. And a label. So we put the cd on to listen to the track he wanted. And do you know - I didn't have a bloody clue what the guy on the record was playing - or how he played it. It was a lousy song with fancy guitar playing - I don't think I ever played that song in public - so I'd never practised it - after getting it as good as I could for the recording sesssion. I really couldn't help this chap - after he'd been so nice as well. Just had to apologse.....weird! |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Anne Lister Date: 26 Jul 08 - 04:34 AM I've recently discovered a trove of cassette recordings, dating back to the late 70s, and among them were a couple of recordings made when I was a guest on Richard Digance's Capital Radio show. Again, like WLD, I discovered songs I'd forgotten I'd written, let alone played. Might reprise some of them in due course! Anne |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Richard Bridge Date: 26 Jul 08 - 04:50 AM That's what distinguishes a senile delinquent from a juvenile one (no insult intended). Beer helps. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Jul 08 - 05:38 AM Incidentally the young man was a big fan of yours Tabster and played me one of your songs ....... The Snow Goose? |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Betsy Date: 26 Jul 08 - 07:14 AM To all , why the f*ck have you reminded me of my great failing ? or at least one of my major failings !!!!!! The consolation is - I'm obviously not alone. The worse aspect is people thinking you are being awkward / offish by not singing a certain song which they would like to hear. They cannot believe that it is possible to forget how to play one of your own songs . Cheers Betsy |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Deckman Date: 26 Jul 08 - 08:42 AM For some reason, I have an almost IMPOSSIBLE time committing to memory any song I write! Maybe it's because after several re-writes, I'm still not completly happy with the final version? Anyone else experience this? CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: *daylia* Date: 26 Jul 08 - 09:26 AM This happens to me quite a bit, when I haven't played one of my own pieces for a long time. I'll get half-way through it, and all of a sudden I'll draw a blank -- pretty frustrating! But -- here's my solution. Many moons ago I wrote out most of my compositions by hand, as a winter project on long dreary snowbound days. And I'm glad I did! Cuz now, when those lapses happen, I can just dig out my ole score and refresh my brain cells. And writing them down has another advantage -- I can share them with my students. Which is great -- I luv it when the 'mistakes' they make sound so good to me I'll change the score and incorporate them! Which has happened a couple times over the years ... so,save yourself the grief and write your best songs down, folks -- that's my 2c worth anyway! daylia |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Tim Leaning Date: 26 Jul 08 - 10:41 AM LOL |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: dick greenhaus Date: 26 Jul 08 - 11:22 AM One thing about Oral transmission--the songs that survive are apt to be memorable. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Gene Burton Date: 26 Jul 08 - 12:29 PM If it's any comfort, my own compositions thus far run into the hundreds, and I couldn't even sit down now and play half of them without re-learning 'em from the recordings- and I'm only in my twenties! But maybe that's for the best- just hold on to the very best from your artistic past and keep looking to the future. (although in my case, I've spent most of my leisure time in the last few months learning new traditional songs...perhaps there's a lesson there?) |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Anne Lister Date: 26 Jul 08 - 01:52 PM WLD - the Snow Goose? Not one of mine! Unless it was Seagull?! I always reckoned that writing my songs down too early was counter-productive in terms of quality, on the basis that if I couldn't remember a song I'd written then an audience was highly unlikely to, either. Somewhere I probably do have the lyrics of the past masterpieces, and now I have a cassette with the melody, too. So all I have to do is resurrect the guitar accompaniment. One of these days I'll compile that songbook, honest! Anne |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Big Al Whittle Date: 26 Jul 08 - 02:57 PM Sorry, he played me a lot of songs- and I'm old and get mixed up! |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: cptsnapper Date: 26 Jul 08 - 03:05 PM I once started to play one of my songs, forgot the second line and after a couple of attempts decided to do another of mine. Unfortunately no sooner had I started the second one when the first one popped up in my brain making me stop completely & give up the idea. Not my finest hour I feel! |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Leadfingers Date: 26 Jul 08 - 03:27 PM I dont write - NO good at worms .at all !! Bt a couple of friends have said that having re written lenes in a song . they have a HELL of a job forgetting the lines that tehey have discarded . |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: jeffp Date: 26 Jul 08 - 03:29 PM A performer I once saw said that his problem was that he remembered all the false starts that went into writing the song in the first place. Sometimes he just couldn't help going down that wrong road once again. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 26 Jul 08 - 06:26 PM What makes songs stick in the head is hearing them sung. Singing your own songs puts you at a disadvantage here. Unless you're inclined to put on recordings you've made and listen to them time and time again. Even then you've still probably got a myriad different versions of the songs swirling around in your brain, liable to pop out at the wrong times. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Gurney Date: 26 Jul 08 - 07:53 PM It may be a comfort to remember that it even happened to Cyril Tawney with Grey Funnel Line. He lost a whole verse for about 35 years, and then had to be reminded. I'm more concerned that I can't LEARN new songs. I used to get the words of a song at three hearings or less, but not now. Notably not now. They were wordy songs, too. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Suegorgeous Date: 26 Jul 08 - 09:25 PM I'm so lucky! I don't have this problem - as I've only written 2 songs! :) |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: JohnB Date: 27 Jul 08 - 11:12 AM I've only written two as well, one of which I can remember. I do however find an awful lot of singer songwriter material quite forgetable :) JohnB |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Charley Noble Date: 27 Jul 08 - 08:29 PM Having grown up in a family where folk song parties were common, I was always puzzled when some of the more ancient people, people over fifty, would forget lines to songs they'd been singing for years. We youngsters knew all their songs, backwards and forwards, and would happily chirp out the missing lyrics. I think I've grown up too much, for now the same thing is happening to me, being ambushed by songs I considered my old friends! There's no justice in this world! Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Acorn4 Date: 28 Jul 08 - 05:12 AM Apparently Bob Dylan once forget the words of "Blowing in the Wind".! |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work Date: 28 Jul 08 - 05:29 AM Every sodding time! The nice bit was, audience members who'd heard it before came to my rescue so at least I know it was me and not the song! But hell, if Carthy and Dylan can do it, why should I worry?!. LTS |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine Date: 28 Jul 08 - 06:31 AM I wish I could forget some of my attempts at writing songs. They're all there at the back of my mind, however much I try to blank them out. I hope to God no-one ever gets me drunk in a public place, puts a guitar into my hands and says, what's the first song you ever wrote I've slipped up and forgotten words of my own songs live though. sometimes no-one notices, but when it's very obvious I'll encourage the audience to buy the CD if they want to know the missing line. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Big Al Whittle Date: 28 Jul 08 - 06:35 AM Ian Campbell once told me this story about when he was playing a folk festival in Germany. Ewan was there and totally forgot the second verse of Shoals of herring. this German bloke in the front row started prompting him, but it had still 'gone' into the 'gone' file.. I can understand all that. What shocked me about my case was - I really could not remember playing this solo - not a note of it. i didn't have ANY clue as to how the bloke on the record had gone about it. Its like someone else did it. I suppose its one argument for listening to your own recordings - once every couple of years say - it would ensure some continuity. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Peace Date: 28 Jul 08 - 06:48 AM In my youth I was able to do the entire "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" written by Dylan after about a half dozen 'goings through'. Finished writing one with a friend a few days back and it's a good thing we wrote the lyrics down because today I can recall about one stanza. Problem may be that writers can and sometimes do get very prolific, and the exploration of images and 'poetic stuff' gets all tangled up in our brains. Problem could also be that we're aging and thinking lots of different things all at once. Show me a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, "Did I come here to take a pee or was I going to wash my face?" |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Big Al Whittle Date: 28 Jul 08 - 06:56 AM It just occurred to me - I didn't hand my tradition down - not even to me, twenty years later! |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work Date: 28 Jul 08 - 07:25 AM One major problem seems to be inserting an original line or phrase, when an amendment had been made at a later date, to improve the rest of the verse/song. Several times I've sung my orignal line only to remember just when it's too late, that I changed it and now the rest of the verse makes no sense whatsoever. I seem to have a small book full of 2 or 3 lines that sounded fantastic at the time but just never fitted into anywhere. Another three pages and I can publish it as 'Philosophy of a Pholkie'. LTS |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Harmonium Hero Date: 28 Jul 08 - 10:17 AM I can sympathise with a lot of the comments here. Many years ago, I was a 'folksinger/songwriter'. I did do some trad songs, but didn't know many then. A couple of years in, I dried up. As I was learning more trad songs, these gradually took over from my stuff, and now, apart from a couple of fairly recent efforts, I'm only doing one of my own songs. The rest have largely ceased to exist. I can remember bits of some, but I've found, when clearing some old jubk out of the attic, some old song lists, and some of the titles have meant nothing at all. And I was getting paid to sing this stuff! Mind you, like JohnB, I find a lot of singer/songwriter material goes in one ear and straight out the other. , so if my old stuff was like that, then perhaps it's best forgotten. Every so often, I like to put a load of current repertoire on tape, and it's always interesting to listen to these ten years later. I always find myself thinking 'gawd, was I that good then? - what's happened?'. I've had to dig out an old tape before now to re-learn a song I haven't sung for a while. And daylia's comment about writing songs out is a good point, not just because you've got them to refer to, but the act of writing something down involves another part of the brain, and so can help the memory. Well, sometimes. Now, where DID I put that song sheet?... John Kelly. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Bobert Date: 28 Jul 08 - 11:04 AM Similar situation here... I found a reel-to-reel tape 3 or 4 years ago in the bottom of a box that had about 15 songs on it that I wrote and recorded in the 60's... Okay, after about 3 listenings most of them came back but a couple??? Ahhhhhh... I am clueless... (When did you say you recorded them, Boberdz???) The 60's... (I rest my case...) B;~) |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: SouthernCelt Date: 28 Jul 08 - 11:18 AM It's obvious from all the responses that forgetting your own songs isn't a rare phenomenon, nor is it just connected to age. I have the same problem with songs I wrote back in the 70s and haven't played or even run through mentally in a number of years. So I guess the mantra for remembering is practice, practice, practice -- everything, whether you intend to perform it publicly or not. Now . . .can anyone provide a fail-safe technique for remembering names? SC |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Harmonium Hero Date: 28 Jul 08 - 11:52 AM No, I can't do names either. People, streets, towns - proper nouns, in fact; I can deal with them in songs, but then they become lyrics, which I can remember. I read somewhere years ago that there's a particular part of the brain that deals with names, and in some people, it isn't very well developed. I'd thought it was just me. It tallies with what I said about writing things down; different bits of brain deal with different subjects, so if you can somehow involve more than one bit, it helps. I noticed a long time ago that when I was singing certain songs, I'd get some mental vision that often had nothing to do with the song, but that happened to come into my head once while I was singing that song, so singing the song became a trigger for the image. This mental association of images is the process used by 'memory men'. (I know that 'cos I've seen it on the telly). John Kelly. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 28 Jul 08 - 04:13 PM I was at a Lightfoot concert many years back. A nice middle-aged lady asked Gordon if he would do "Pony Man," once a favorite of her young son, who had passed on prematurely. Though Gordon had most certainly played it many times in earlier years, he could not recall it well enough to play it for her, even at such a moment. He was very apologetic and asked her permission to substitute another tune. I thought he handled it well. I have no doubt many of us have had a similar experience. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: nutty Date: 28 Jul 08 - 07:18 PM I find that writing a song and performing it are two totally seperate activities. If I want to perform one of my own songs I have to learn it as if it has been written by someone else or I'm tempted to keep changing it and then it never gets finished/learnt. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Date: 28 Jul 08 - 07:21 PM Deckman, I always had the worst problem memorizing songs I'd written -- versus traditional songs, which I generally picked up and retained easily. I always figured it was something to do with the fact that my songs were somehow still fluid in my mind ... indeterminate ... they never achieved fixed form. Or something like that. Whereas I took other songs as a given, mine never seemed finished. That seems close to what you were saying. It never got better. I always had to practice my own stuff twice as hard. And that was annoying, you know, because I got tired of my own stuff about ten times quicker. Weird, huh? Bob |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: kendall Date: 29 Jul 08 - 06:37 AM I'm not the only one who forgets my songs...seems like everyone forgets them. sniff |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Bert Date: 29 Jul 08 - 01:36 PM Of course I forget my own songs. But I don't worry about it. As several people have suggested here, they just weren't memorable enough. So I write some new ones and hope that they will be more memorable than the old ones. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: GUEST,EASE Date: 29 Jul 08 - 10:24 PM Come on Joey - back off - basicly, I've been ... a hull-lot nicer...since the need for a fearce visage to scare off the infidels has diminished the e-mails and chat sessions have been a welcome blessing. Its not easy keeping a stone-face.
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Phil Edwards Date: 01 Aug 08 - 07:15 PM Remembering a song when the lyrics are in that muzzy quantum state, with multiple alternatives for every other line, is a nightmare - fortunately I find that once a song's finished the lines seem to stay put. Singing it in public helps to get everything nailed down (at least until the second time I try to sing it in public). Singing unaccompanied makes it easier to keep it all in my head - at the moment I'm reasonably confident of 20-30 traditional songs and a similar number of my own, plus various bits of Dylan, Nick Drake, etc. But it is a bit fragile - does a song exist if it's never been sung in public, recorded or written down? (As with one song I wrote a couple of years ago but got tired of almost immediately. It's still taking up headspace, though.) |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: semi-submersible Date: 02 Aug 08 - 04:52 AM I heard a story that Cab Calloway had the same problem with his newly-written "Minnie the Moocher." During the song's first performance, he forgot the chorus onstage, had to improvise... and created a novelty song that would be a big hit. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Peace Date: 02 Aug 08 - 06:38 AM "Now . . .can anyone provide a fail-safe technique for remembering names?" Now, THAT I can help with, Northern Celt. |
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Subject: RE: Forgetting your own songs From: Genie Date: 02 Aug 08 - 10:06 AM Deckman, I have the same experience that you mentioned, with my own songs, and I think you nailed a main reason. Most of my songs, especially the lyrics, have gone through so many rewrites and revisions that many lines don't have the memory advantage of hundreds of verbatim repetitions to burn them into my mind. There are a few of my songs, perhaps with somewhat simpler lyrics but, more importantly, where "the perfect lines" just popped into my head full blown; I seldom have trouble remembering those songs. But McGrath and others are so right in pointing to the practice factor. I not only sometimes forget even my best songs or lines, if I haven't sung them in 20 years (Duh), but I often find I don't PERFORM my own songs as well as I do a lot of songs by others. Could have something to do with my hardly ever singing my own songs, either in public or at home, once I've recorded them. (Note to self: If you like one of your own songs, stop stuffing it away in the remote closets of your mind.) I don't agree that forgetting a song necessarily means it wasn't "memorable." Most of us don't remember songs well without repetition, no matter how good they are -- especially if the chord patterns or lyrics aren't totally predictable. I recently 'revived' a political satire song that I'd written about 1984 - a send-up of Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority -- at a music camp. It was a kind of spontaneous decision, and I decided to do the song at the camp concert. I spent the better part of the day, off and on, trying to retrieve and write down the lyrics, and usually when the first line of a verse would come back to me, so did the whole verse and maybe the next one. But I ended up leaving out 1 or 2 of the best verses -- THE best verse and line, in fact -- and best lines (and juxtaposing a couple others in a non-ideal way because of that), simply because I had not allowed myself enough time for the memory retrieval processes to work. By the next afternoon, all the missing lines/verses had come back to me, perfectly. I had not truly "forgotten" my song. I just hadn't been able to "find" all of it quickly. And though I had recorded the song (performances) a few times, I don't think I had ever written it down. But I guess it's not all that unusual for songwriters -- especially the prolific ones like Dylan, etc., -- to forget some of their works (especially if their muse was aided by certain substances?). There's a thread here about an Ian Tyson song called "The Renegade." Someone actually contacted Ian T to find the Native American (Native Canadian?) words in the song, as well as the story behind the lyrics, and he replied that he didn't know and didn't even recall writing it. |
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