The Stream of Consciousness...

...or, as most creative people know it, the Flood of Unintelligible Rubbish (97% of the time).

For the first time in a creatively barren eighteen months (musically speaking), I'm finally starting to feel the first stirrings of that elusive muse (which was going to be the name of this blog, but unbelievably it is already the name of an Academy-Award-nominated documentary. And I thought I was being so clever...).

I'm sure many songwriters, poets, etc. get this feeling when looking at some of their previous, best work - that feeling of "How on earth did I write that well before?" It's not a particularly egotistical feeling, to be clear - it's more a longing for that crystalline, lightning-flash coalescence of time and space and mindset that enabled you to write those perfect lyrics you'd been searching for for so long. It only lasts half an hour at most, and when it leaves you it's like a comedown from some internal drug - you can't remember it. At all. All you've got for evidence is that perfect rhyming couplet, or chorus, or verse - normally scribbled so fast you can barely read it - that really makes the song.

I should add, this little mini-rant was inspired in part by a link sent to me by my great friend, Miss Sarah Dargie (one of the most creative people I know). I feel it refers more to film and art, so I thought I'd put my own lyrical slant on it, but it's a truly inspiring letter for anyone creative, written by Austin Madison of Pixar: http://friendswelove.com/blog/persist-austin-madison/

Anyway, I decided to "persist" through uninspired times by writing a stream of consciousness: that is, literally taking anything that came into my head and going with it. I find it tends to repeat itself if I keep at it for sustained periods of time, so this time I tried it in short bursts. It's a well recognised songwriting technique, and the first time I came across it was on an old Radiohead website, where Thom Yorke writes words heedless of spelling or grammar:

you run away scared outOfyourWits

thats is a heavyle load so you can't run so fast

sanctury you find ina n the dream of anearly grave and a few forlorn words

a million and one pinpricks in the one youloVe HOPIng she ll
give up on yu so youd r e a l l y hav someone tobLame

boy
you hav got to get your house in

(plenty more where that came from at http://www.radiohead.com/Archive/Site1/elsewhere.html.)

So I tried something like it, and this is what came out:

Parasites feasting on the host

Father, Son and Holy Ghost

No idea what it meant, but it was surprisingly not bad - it even rhymed! Then I tried it again.

Wraith? Ghost, ZOMBIES!!

Wellll... one out of two ain't bad.