The Portland Songwriting Association has a monthly songwriting workshop. I've been to it a couple of times before, once just to listen, and once to present Together. I'm hoping to go a bit more often now that I think my songwriting might be speeding up. Today I went and presented My Favorite Clown.

This was kind of a first for me because my first five songs (Vagabond Blues, As One, All Aboard, A Kiss, and Together) are all songs that I can't perform by myself. It was a real goal of mine to start developing songs that I'd be able to perform by myself (or also with an ensemble). So this meant I needed to get around to writing songs that are actually piano-driven. I don't know why I was reticent about this at first, considering piano is my main instrument.

So, in a way, I consider these more piano-driven songs my "real" songs, or at least attempts of them. Also because these are the songs I can perform if/when I start playing out. So I guess it felt like something of a... if not a coming out, at least a step forward for me.

It was really fun. I was a little late so I missed the first song and ended up last on the presenters list. I enjoyed listening to and making comments on the other songs - I didn't catch many names, but there was an unrequited love song that was especially nice (Ricky somethng?) and there was a father and young daughter there that both presented songs, which was really cute - the girl's song (a cappella) had some surprisingly nice elements to it. A lot of the songs were in development and everyone had lots of good suggestions and comments to make. It's a very constructive community.

Presenting my song was pretty interesting. For those who haven't been through it, putting your song on a cd player for others to listen to is quite the experience. You're just kind of sitting there trying to make yourself irrelevant while everyone's paying attention to this other part of you. As for that song, sometimes I get a little self-conscious about if it is too long but it didn't seem like anyone's attention was flagging so it felt pretty comfortable listening to it. There was a really nice reaction after the song was over.

One thing that is interesting about that song, and I haven't written about this before here, is that it has a dual meaning. I never explicitly mention age or gender in the song but it definitely hits people in a parent/child way, especially people who might be parents. And that is how it seemed to hit everyone at first, just of it being a really sweet song.

But then after three or four people commented, another woman spoke up and mentioned that it might have just been her, but she also had the thought that it might have been a girlfriend song, or at least that elements of that were in there and maybe she wasn't sure of my intention... and so there I broke in, and said, "See, that's what the song is actually about." And everyone in the room stopped and went, "Oohhhhh." :-) That was really funny and satisfying on some level.

It might have made some people not actually like the song as much... :) I heard someone say they liked it better when they thought it was about parents and children, and not about a failed love relationship. It spun into this fun discussion about whether they liked it as a child song or a girlfriend song, and discussions of certain phrases, making them work better for one direction, after which someone else would disagree because it would make it work worse for the other direction. I love that it's a bit of a puzzle song, although I know that some of the challenge is that it makes it so hard to find phrases that work very well for both meetings. I told them that I really did want it to be about both, but that I wanted the ex-girlfriend angle to remain kind of hidden.

It's also interesting to me how people are so different in what they see. I have one friend - who, granted, knows me - saw the relationship metaphor immediately, and thinks it's too obvious and that I'm pounding it home too much. Others don't see it at all. I love that - there's definitely a ton left for me to discover about what you can do with lyrics. My music side is way ahead of the lyric side.

Overall it was pretty illuminating. Dan Lowe had some great comments after the workshop too. He's got a ton of songwriting experience and is very respected in the community - definitely a high compliment that he enjoyed it.

I'm not sure how much I'll change it. I like how the song hits people when they don't know the story. When the truth is that I love how this song pretty much perfectly captures so many of the dynamics of a major past relationship of mine. I don't see myself sacrificing one direction for the other. I think that with a little more musical variation in melody and background, and some minor lyric phrase changes, I'll be done.