Where Does Inspiration Come From?
Just ask the drummer..
Yesterday’s Bonus Round: (Which I tried to make kind of easy): Don Henley’s 1984 song “The Boys Of Summer”.
“The lead single from Henley's album Building the Perfect Beast, "The Boys of Summer" was released on October 26, 1984.[1]”
I was reading the Wikipedia entry for the song and found this kinda interesting: “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell wrote a demo for "The Boys of Summer" while experimenting with a LinnDrum drum machine. He showed it to Tom Petty, but they felt it did not fit with the record they were working on, Southern Accents. At the suggestion of producer Jimmy Iovine, Campbell played it for Don Henley, who wrote the lyrics and recorded the vocal.”
And then this gem popped up: “They rerecorded the song after Henley decided to change the key.[2][3]” Credit: Wikipedia
I imagine a room full of musicians and audio engineers and various others involved and then “I dunno, let’s do it in a different key….”
Well, that might put your knowledge of music theory as a language between musicians to the test…
And necessarily so, I think, but in a room full of professionals, aside from a sigh or two, that’s probably exactly what they did.
Except, they didn’t.
So this last week’s been a bit of a challenge for me. Allergies, stuff to get done, blah, blah blah. I was reminded of a great lyric from The Pretenders hit “Back On The Chain Gang”: “…the phone and the TV and the news of the world…”.
Yep, felt like I was running out of inspiration, and had no idea what I was going to write about today. Then I happened to notice one of the citations from the Wikipedia article - it’s the [2] at the end of the quote above. It’s a link to this YouTube video by Mike Campbell who wrote the iconic riff and other music that became “The Boys Of Summer”:
If there was ever a story about not giving up, at least in the music biz, this is kinda “it” - even if you don’t even read any further in today’s post, please take a few minutes to listen to this.
Apparently I needed to hear some fascinating stories today, and man, did the “news of the world” deliver:
We’ve all heard the stories of the troubles within the band, and there’s plenty there to read. But the part that struck me the most was the item about being 3 months into the eventual 13 months of recording “Tusk”, the follow on album to “Rumours”. Difficult to imagine the amount of drama swirling around and yet persevering for 10 more months in the studio. Yes, money and contracts, all of that, but still…
So, as musicians, most of us don’t spend spend our days rushing into danger or making life and death decisions, but the people who do, and everyone else besides, listen to our music….
And that’s what’s inspiring me today - you too, I hope.
Some links and stuff:
Bonus Round: If you wanna sing the blues…..
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic