Jeff Tweedy on "the work"

I picked up Wilco: Learning How to Die by Greg Kot yesterday and I can't put it down. I'm not reading it straight through (I did that three years ago), but just pick it up at a random page. There's something very inspirational in reading about how creative people operate, and there are a couple of passages that really jump out. I'll share one of them with you now. This is a quote from Jeff Tweedy, talking about how the process was different for Summerteeth as opposed to previous albums:

I worked harder at laying the groundwork to generate inspiration. The work is putting yourself in that position more often. Creating the environment is the work. Picking up the guitar, picking up the pen, making yourself do that every day, and resigning yourself to the idea that it won't happen every day, but realizing that it's more likely to happen if you have your pen in your hand than if you don't.

In this passage, Tweedy was working against his normal tendency, which was to sit down with a tape recorder and record things as they popped into his head. To resist this, he began carrying around a satchel with books by the likes of Henry Miller and William H. Gass. He also began filling up notebooks with bits of lyrics, conversation and other text in the interest of starting with lyrical ideas and adding melody later. Any of these approaches sound intriguing and could be an effective way to get an idea going. I would recommend trying one of these you haven't done before if you get stuck in a rut.

Comments

[Iain MacKinnon]

I'm fascinated by the apparent contradiction entailed in the discipline of creativity. Its a leap in our thinking when we realise that creativity is not just a fluffy, organic, intuitive process, but that it also requires rules and discipline. Having the discipline frees us to have the organic part cut loose. It's striking that balance which gives us the optimum conditions for our writing.

[Melanie]

I think there are many times I would love to have something handy when I'm stuck in heavy traffic. It seems I am always thinking of creative things then, probably to keep from being bored to tears? But while I search for a pen, the traffic begins to move and I lose the thought. So, there is likely something to what he says there. I'm not much of a song writer, though.