Jeff Tweedy, in How to Write One Song, writes, “In my opinion, it’s more important to be a good listener than to be a good musician. In fact, I wouldn’t separate the two. I think the best musicians are the best listeners.”
This is also true of spiritual directors, pastors, preachers, parents, plumbers, principals, psychologists, poets, presidents, programmers, police officers, pharmacists, physicians–anyone, really.
If you want to be great at something, start by opening your ears, softening your heart, and paying attention.
We’re able to form really complex stories off the top of our heads. Conversation comes from our subconscious–we search for language, tell stories, express ourselves in a way that’s organic. I think that’s the starting point for writing anything. If you’re able to express yourself as a human, you’re able to mine that ability to create other modes of expression, to mine that ability for songs. To me, that’s the best evidence that everyone can write a song. Maybe not everyone can make a chord progression, but everyone can make up a story.
Tweedy demonstrates this by relaying a particularly spirited conversation he recently had, marking in bold snippets from that conversation, lifting those portions, and then rearranging the pieces until they had the rhythm and feel of a song.
I’m reading Jeff Tweedy’s memoir Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back Again) because of my decade long listenership to Wilco. The book was a Christmas gift. My fascination with the band began with a friend named Clint Newlan, who was a shift manager and fellow barista with me at Starbucks in 2005-2006. I saw a Wilco show with Clint at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City on March 21, 2006, saw them again at Crossroads KC with my friend Mike Hibit on October 6, 2009, and then went to see them with Molly at Bass Concert Hall in Austin on October 1, 2017. I’m a fan.
In the book Tweedy comments on the purpose of art, and expands his thought by reflecting on art’s restorative power. He writes:
I think that may be the highest purpose of any work of art, to inspire someone else to save themselves through art. Creating creates creators. When I was in the hospital going through treatment for addiction and depression, they would have everyone in my group do art therapy. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen was watching a catatonic sixty-three-year-old woman who had been hooked on heroin for close to thirty years become human again by holding a pencil and being asked to draw. I’m an agnostic by nature, but seeing that made me believe in staying close to the notion of a creator. The one we identify with most easily by finding it in ourselves.
I think that is about right. Art puts us back together; creating heals, connecting us with something that is elemental to being human. Art is not a self-salvation project, as Tweedy suggests, but it does have restorative potential.
There is a theological dimension to Tweedy’s observation as well, one Christian theology affirms. The Apostle’s Creed begins with the words, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and when God gets around to creating humankind in Genesis 1:27, we read, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
While Tweedy is an agnostic, his impressions point him toward a truth that Christians agree with: “Creating creates creators.” Human beings, created in the image of their Maker, make.
The creative impulse is stamped upon us, and creativity takes many forms. When it finds outward expression it is not only revelatory of something within, but also something without–the existence of a Creator who first created, making creatures who then, in turn, create.
Today I went shopping at a local thrift shop and spent less than six bucks on five CDs, one DVD, and four books. My best find: Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. I paid fifty cents for a hardback edition of the best novel I read in 2017.
Earlier in the week, on another bookstore visit, I bought a signed and dedicated copy of William Brackney’s A Genetic History of Baptist Thought for nine dollars. Why was I excited about this one? It was dedicated to Herbert H. Reynolds, who was President of Baylor University from 1981 to 1995.
The title page, with signature, dedication, and HHR stamp.
I just finished reviewing Amazon’s Kindle deals for the month of January, and have chosen to link those I find notable. I’ll offer a sentence or two on each selection.
This is one of my favorite novels, so at $3.99 as an eBook I think it’s a steal. I’d go so far as to recommend this one as an actual book for your shelves. Berry’s depiction of a barber in the small town of Port William, Kentucky shows the meaning of vocation, community, gentleness, love of the land, and simple faith.
These are both $1.99, and either could be used as a daily devotional resource. Merton and Lewis are both insightful and worth allowing into your thought-space on a regular basis.
Brennan Manning has taught me a tremendous amount about God’s grace, and this book is only $1.99. Manning makes it clear that God’s love for us is far grander than we’ve imagined and that it is for everyone, even you and me.
For about the first ten years of my marriage I made it a goal to read at least one book annually on how to be a better spouse. There is another book out there by Gary Thomas that is more about those who are not married but open to be married that is also on sale, which might be of interest to some.
This week I finished Jeff Tweedy’s memoir Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back). Tweedy is a singer/songwriter, and leads my favorite band, Wilco. I also finished Ursula K. LeGuin’s So Far So Good, her final collection of poems.
