yr6/wk44 Under My Pillow

Powerful writing Ken, although I'll have to hold my hands up and say I'd be struggling a bit as to the overall meaning if I hadn't read your notes in Complaints Comments and Concerns. After reading that, it all seems clearer. The first couple of sections could be anyone reminiscing - over a beer, looking at an old photo, etc, but the next couple of passages hint at the underlying truth.

What did strike me immediately about the song was that there were parts that read very much like Straycat's writing - a turn of phrase, the allusive imagery, the poetic lightness contrasting with the dark subject matter - and like some of Anne's songs, it took me a while to unravel. That's no bad thing - sometimes you HAVE to dig deep to understand the subtleties, and having to break down a song like this to look for the meaning can only be helpful for one's own writing.

On a side issue, I agree with you 100% about the SSG improving our songwriting skills - I find it very illuminating looking back at my earlier efforts and contrasting them with more recent songs.

Anyway, I'm very impressed with this song - anything in mind for music yet? Seems like it's going to have to be somewhat sombre, and yet hopeful.....

:D :D :D

Vic

Hey Vic :D

Thankx for the wonderful reply 8)

Sorry I didn't get back sooner.... I'm a bit under the weather this last week.

Yes, there were parts that I thought read very Straycat-like!
I'm glad to see that someone else thought so too.... and I'll definitely take that as a HUGE compliment! :D

As far as the music goes; I have nothing in mind for it at the moment.
I think it should be deceptively simple though :wink:

Thankx again,

Ken

Well, I guess the time has come to shed some light on the lyrics.

I left out the backstory to get some feedback on them as a 'stand alone' song....
maybe knowing that it's 'about a fictional character' is leaving too much of a mystery for some.

It's actually pretty complicated; how this all hatched....

It must have started last thursday.... I was on the way back from a run up to 'Da U.P.' (that's the upper pininsula of Michigan)
It's a long and lonely ride through the middle of nowhere, and only two stations were coming in on the radio: Country, and N.P.R.
N.P.R. it was! (as I'm no fan of country music).

The topic of discussion happened to be about Manic-Depression; it's problems, AND it's gifts.
How it lends itself to writing poetry, and how many artists have struggled with it.
It was short, but fascinating to me.

The bi-polar author they were interviewing was saying that the more manic episodes led to being able to join together
many disjointed things and images - which of course is benificial to writing poetry.
And that the more depressive times led to a greater sensitivity to ones surroundings - also needed in writing poetry.

And so I listened and filed away what I had heard.

Hardly any sleep, and up at 2 in the morning to get ready for work on friday, and Zenned out in the shower....
a 'song' I had written as a drug addled teanager popped into my head.... :idea:

That's when it all started coming together!
Of Course! - I said....

A minor character from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest'!!!!

I had originally wanted to use the lines from my teen song and fill in the story between them.
That didn't last long.

Though, the lines from that song all started with the phrase: "I remember...."
Which is where the 'reminiscing' in the first part of the song came from :)

Now, a look at the 'minor characters' in Kesey's book had me thinking that none fit the profile that was in my head for the song character.
That is to say that they were all a bit 'Too Much' of characters.
I wanted a more - everyday person.
So, it's not any specific Kesey character.... more of a composite I guess.

One of the parts in the book that really struck me was when McMurphy (an IN-voluntarily commited patient) discovers that
most all of the other patients that he's associating with are there of their own accord.... that they have commited themselves, and can 'uncommit' themselves at any time.

McMurphy responds by saying something like - Are You Crazy! Well, you're not!

So, my character is an everyday man who is struggling with manic-depression and has commited himself to a mental institution.
He has a wife and a family that he misses very much.
The lyrics are a letter from him to his wife.
It sort of starts out in bit of a 'hypo-manic' state on the edge of depression and alludes to a few underlying things.
He seems almost apologetic about suffering his condition.
It was all writen in a 'normal' way.

The second part has him tumbling into a disjointed mania.
(Kesey stated that as his time as a psychiatric aide, when the patients would come back from a weekend pass, they would be in a terrible state, as they had left the sancuary of the asylum to go back home - where their problems had all started in the first place)
So, his reminiscing to his wife leads to him becoming manic.

The second part of the song was actually done in a 'cut-up method' of writing (like I've been talking of doing lately).
That method seemed to me to lend itself more to the idea of 'a joining of disjointed imagry' in a poetic sense.
The source of the cut-up material was from the first lines of random chapters throughout Kesey's book.
I may have changed a word here or there, or finished a part of a line to make it work better, for the most part though - random right out of the book.

I made up the last line, because I needed something to rhyme with 'next'.

The last line in the book is from the real hero of the novel - Chief Bromden:
"I been away a long time"
You can see how that thought ended up in the song.

The title (for now anyway) 'Under My Pillow' is from the tragic end of McMurphy.
Without knowing his fate, that phrase seems innocuous enough, almost child-like.
Though the reality behind it is darker and a bit more sinister.

The song was longer.... I left off the original end as it really started going down a path of depression.
And 'under my pillow' started to allude to more suicidal thoughts.
I felt that it was perhaps a bit too much.
Although, I must say.... it is where the 'character' took me.
Writing this was a very powerful experience for me, and was probably the closest that I ever came to 'being in character'
(in the old 'Method Acting' sense).
It affected my mood to some degree, and took me about a day to snap out of 'the fever' after I had finished it.

It was thrilling! to say the least; and I look forward to writing more songs that way :twisted:

Ken

no way I could have ever found out where this came from... haven't read the book either :wink:
really like the way you use language here (e.g. "all-our-plans") and the way this sounds/flows:
"not even just one more day, Love
anyway
I've been away now, for so very long"

can't really say anything but
love it :D :D :D
thanks :wink:
cheers,
straycat.

no way I could have ever found out where this came from... haven't read the book either

Well I'm kicking myself that I didn't work it out - getting slow in my old age, that's my excuse - seen the film, read (and thoroughly enjoyed) the book many times.

Like I said before, it's a powerful, evocative piece of writing - makes even more sense now I know the full story behind it. You've managed to capture the essence, the essential core of the book/film, making it accessible and generalising it at the same time - and that's no mean feat. Well done, again! Now all you've got to do is come up with some music....

:D :D :D

Vic

Hi Anne :D :D :D :D

Thank you for the kind reply :mrgreen:

Never read Cuckoo's Nest!....?

One of the greatest books of all time.
I'll have to get you a copy as a Christmas gift :wink:

Ken

Makes even more sense now I know the full story behind it. You've managed to capture the essence, the essential core of the book/film, making it accessible and generalising it at the same time.

:D :D :D

Vic

Thankx for the second response, Vic! :D

Yeah, it was based more on Kesey's book (not to take anything away from Jack's amazing performance of McMurphy).
The movie seemed to glorify and center around the antics of McMurphy, and while that makes a good movie,
that's not at all what the book was about.

To me, the book's main character was 'The Combine'.
And Chief Bromden as the 'Unreliable Narrator' was fantastic.

And so, the patients are all caught in the grips of 'the combine' before McMurphy comes along and becomes their savior.
So, the story in the song is sort of pre-McMurphy....
Including Mac, would run the risk of having him dominate the song! (much like the movie :P )

It was interesting to write, as I was trying to feel how someone with a percieved mental illness could feel....
wanting both to 'fit in' with the people in their life while simultaneously wanting to be accepted for who they are.
Feeling hounded by the closest people to them as the condition worsens.... ultimately driving a wedge between them.

A couple days ago, I was listening to 'Counting Crows' songs on youtube and ran across this quote from Adam Duritz concerning the song 'Round Here':

"The first way Counting Crows ever sounded, it was me and Dave in bars and coffee houses playing open mics, doing this song this way. The song begins with a guy walking out the front door of his house, and leaving behind this woman . But the more he begins to leave people behind in his life, the more he feels like he's leaving himself behind as well. The less and less substantial he feels like he's becoming to himself. And that's sorta what the song's about because he feels that even as he disappears from the lives of people, he's disappearing more and more from his own life".

I was amazed to find that, as it was how I was thinking of this person (in Under My Pillow).

So now, he's traded in the old reality of holding hands at the beach, for the new one of cold sterile hospital rooms.
And the old reality has become a sort of ghost.... much like the old 'him'.

Anyway....
I better quit now before I ramble on for hours!

Say.... You wouldn't happen to have any idea's for the music, would ya Vic?

Ken