I'm one of two teachers at my school who supervises the closed-circuit "broadcast" we have each week, during which a select group of 4th and 5th graders get together to write and rehearse a 10-minute or so news program that consists of announcements and information about the school. During this past week, one of the kids and I went down to raid the media center, looking for a book we could talk about on the broadcast last week. Rehearsal had fallen apart a little by the time we got back even though we'd been gone for maybe three minutes, and one of the anchors had taken the microphone and was singing what I can only describe as a personally-stylized mash-up of her favorite Justin Bieber/Miley Cyrus songs. Yes, this is the world I live in. At least she was able to admit that her singing wasn't measuring up, with a bit of self-deprecating, inferential humor: "This is why I'm in dance."
But to my great surprise, one of the other kids chimed in with his own song when she finished, trying to demonstrate that his music was better. Hard to argue with the boy, because the sight of this hilarious 11-year-old kid breaking in to song for just half the chorus of Journey's "Wheel in the Sky" almost knocked me over. And equally surprising was that the aforementioned Pop Princess I.D.'d the band as Journey, but quickly dismissed his choice because "this is their best song," and then picked up her mic again and started in the first few bars of "Don't Stop Believin'." That she knew the song wasn't a big surprise since there are few songs from the 80s that are as ubiquitous as that one still today, particularly with the advent of "Glee."
But it got me thinking - out of the 138 Journey songs I have on my iPod, is that REALLY the best one? It's definitely in the running for me - great song, and one of the first songs that introduced me to rock and roll. For a good year in 8th grade, my favorite homemade tape was a 120 minute cassette that had Styx's "Paradise Theater" on one side with side one of "Foreigner 4" (and I quote that as the title, because that's what all the cool 8th graders called it; nobody referred to the album as just "4"), and on the B side we had side 2 of Foreigner 4 with Journey's "Escape." Out of those albums, "Escape" is easily the one that holds up the best nearly 30 years down the road. And "Don't Stop Believin'" opens the album. Not to mention Journey has the distinction of guitarist Neal Schon, who was absolutely the first musician I was a fan of, in the sense that I could recognize he was what made the band great, and if it hadn't been for his playing the structure of the band's songs would be irreparably less. So besides being a great song, it has a lot of power for me sentimentally. But is it Journey's best song?
Here's a rundown of my personal favorites and why as I try to answer this question. And as much as I hate to do this, I have to discount anything Journey did before Steve Perry joined the band or after he left, because let's face it -- this is the classic line-up, and even if it's completely Neal Schon's band, it's also completely Steve Perry's voice.
**"Feelin' That Way / Anytime" - Even though KQRS has become the Black Hole of Classic Rock, I'll give them credit for playing a lot of Journey back in the day. It took me years to know the titles of these two songs because they were only introduced as Journey, probably because they were always played together as one continuous song, like "Well Will Rock You/We Are the Champions" by Queen often are (which irritates me to no end, by the way). Finally I saw them listed when I bought a cassette copy of the live album "Captured" at Target for $5.99. For a double album. One of my best musical bargains ever. Best song though? No.
**"The Party's Over" - The one studio recording on "Captured," which was another KQ standard. And a great song. Fast paced, rockin' love song, kind of sad, very melodic. Awesome song for driving with the windows rolled down. Best song? Eh. Top 10 probably.
**"Stone in Love" - Great, fast rocking song. Again with the melody, evocative lyrics that probably mean more to me now than they did then. Best? Maybe....
**Still They Ride" - Not "Open Arms," not "Faithfully" -- I'm going to tag this as Journey's best ballad. I always loved the contrast of the slow, beautiful melody it starts with and the power that builds throughout until it reaches an absolutely shredding guitar solo. Best? Definitely top 10.
**"Escape" - Title track. Very powerful and inspiring for me. Love this one. Definitely top 5. Best? Maybe.....
**"Troubled Child" - from "Frontiers." Not a radio song at all, but probably the darkest song Journey ever recorded. Probably why it appeals to me. Not a best candidate though.
**"Faithfully" - Not "Still They Ride," but still a killer ballad. Maybe top 10.
**"Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin" - A slow burn, bluesy song with a guitar explosion at the end. One of the reasons I loved going to my grandmother's house in Superior so much was that one of my cousins had bought the 45 single of this and had forgotten it there. So a trip to Superior meant I could hear it whenever I wanted without having to wait for KQ to get around to it. Definite Top 5, and, I'd like to point out, also a song featured in "Glee."
**"Girl Can't Help It" -- Not a great song by any stretch, but it reminds me of a crush I had one summer. It gets points for that alone.
**"Raised on Radio" -- A really fast rocking song about how great the songs were on the radio in the olden days. Which I guess I'm doing a version of right now myself, so here's my world coming full circle. It's a goofy song that cribs a bunch of classic lyrics from the 50s and 60s, but musically it's a high energy song.
Okay. I've thought it through. So, to the broadcast team, I'm sorry, but you've got it all wrong. "Wheel in the Sky" I always found kind of boring, but I give you credit for knowing it. "Don't Stop Believin'" is undeniably a classic, and anyone who would try to deny that is too pathetically enamored of their own self-appointed indie-rock cred to be taken seriously.
Both good songs, but for today, I'm going with "Escape."
Now go login to your iTunes accounts and let the downloading commence.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The Process: Soundtracks
All right, to get it out of the way - Happy Easter to anyone reading this on the day I write it. My family's Easter festivities don't kick in until later this afternoon, so I'm taking a day off from my self-perpetuating To-Do List to just write.
Three things I'm working on in earnest these days: First off, I'm still trying to polish the current draft of Infinity, but I'm getting closer to satisfied. I'm at the picky-picky step of running a search on the whole manuscript for word crutches (words I overuse) and revising around them or eliminating them altogether. Incidentally, my biggest crutches are, in order: "that," "very," and "really." Imagine the fun of closely examining the 769 occurrences of one particular word and then trying to decide whether or not each one is necessary.
Project 2 is the book I'm writing for my cousin "Mav" out in Afghanistan. Happily the whole thing finally came together in my head yesterday as far as story outline, so no longer am I just struggling to get something done by just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and what doesn't.
Project 3 brings us to today's topic: Soundtracks. About 10 years ago I wrote a little manuscript called Grandpa, which was a nice little heartwarming bit of middle grade realistic fiction. I revisited it not long ago, and saw that, surprisingly, it didn't suck half as much as I remembered. In fact, it was worth revising into a really (see, there I go with the crutch) solid book. And, since I gave up on my self-imposed write-a-book-in-February project, I thought knocking Grandpa into respectable shape was worth my time. This way I will both be able to provide a bit of realistic fiction for that one particular student who occasionally gets in my face about writing realistic fiction that isn't sad (i.e. Infinity) and I could get one more title in the rotation for hunting agents.
But the first time I started looking it over, it was a daunting task. "Take this book you wrote ten years ago, and dissect the whole thing, and then make it better." Not a ride around the lake right there. But then I had a moment of inspiration: Get the Hornsby back out. See, when I wrote Grandpa, I listened to absolutely nothing but Bruce Hornsby when I was writing, because in my mind, his music evokes the same sense of tone and emotion that I was going for in my writing, and having that as my soundtrack helped me get there. And wow, as soon as I did that, everything I was struggling with about revising that book suddenly made perfect sense.
Different people have different methods behind their creativity. For me? I gotta have a soundtrack.
Three things I'm working on in earnest these days: First off, I'm still trying to polish the current draft of Infinity, but I'm getting closer to satisfied. I'm at the picky-picky step of running a search on the whole manuscript for word crutches (words I overuse) and revising around them or eliminating them altogether. Incidentally, my biggest crutches are, in order: "that," "very," and "really." Imagine the fun of closely examining the 769 occurrences of one particular word and then trying to decide whether or not each one is necessary.
Project 2 is the book I'm writing for my cousin "Mav" out in Afghanistan. Happily the whole thing finally came together in my head yesterday as far as story outline, so no longer am I just struggling to get something done by just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and what doesn't.
Project 3 brings us to today's topic: Soundtracks. About 10 years ago I wrote a little manuscript called Grandpa, which was a nice little heartwarming bit of middle grade realistic fiction. I revisited it not long ago, and saw that, surprisingly, it didn't suck half as much as I remembered. In fact, it was worth revising into a really (see, there I go with the crutch) solid book. And, since I gave up on my self-imposed write-a-book-in-February project, I thought knocking Grandpa into respectable shape was worth my time. This way I will both be able to provide a bit of realistic fiction for that one particular student who occasionally gets in my face about writing realistic fiction that isn't sad (i.e. Infinity) and I could get one more title in the rotation for hunting agents.
But the first time I started looking it over, it was a daunting task. "Take this book you wrote ten years ago, and dissect the whole thing, and then make it better." Not a ride around the lake right there. But then I had a moment of inspiration: Get the Hornsby back out. See, when I wrote Grandpa, I listened to absolutely nothing but Bruce Hornsby when I was writing, because in my mind, his music evokes the same sense of tone and emotion that I was going for in my writing, and having that as my soundtrack helped me get there. And wow, as soon as I did that, everything I was struggling with about revising that book suddenly made perfect sense.
Different people have different methods behind their creativity. For me? I gotta have a soundtrack.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Baby Steps in a Good Direction
Last week sometime on Facebook I posted a status message that said something alone the lines of how reading Nick Hornby made me want to hide under a rock since I know I'll never be able to write at the level he does.
I received some nice complimentary bits of encouragement which I didn't reply to because in retrospect it was too easy to interpret what I had said as fishing for compliments, which is something that generally I feel very uneasy about. For the record - I know I'm a good writer, and even if I wasn't I wouldn't stop writing anyway. Writing is more about the personal satisfaction than whether or not anyone else is impressed. I know when I write a book, there are two or three times when I'll have a perfectly constructed line in there, some sentence or idea that is just so flawless that it can take the reader out of the story for a moment just to reread it and admire it. My favorite part of reading is discovering lines like that, and if I do come up with a couple of those on my own, I'm very proud of it. My point of comparison was that Nick Hornby comes up with a perfect line like that several times in every chapter instead of a few times in every book. I'm not going to get all Duncan about it (Hornby reference, if you're lucky enough to be in the know), but he is pretty genius. And after all, he asked us to read, so I don't mind expressing my opinion about him. Even if it isn't on an obsessive message board.
Anyway. For the benefit of anyone who tried to offer me encouragement after my Hornby post, I'd like to share something with you. I submitted my first query letters to a handful of literary agents for the book we call Infinity these days. The query is you introducing yourself and the work to the agent, and hoping that they will notice that (a) you have an interesting story told, and (b) you can write well enough to be taken seriously, so they will (c) ask to see more or all of your manuscript and offer representation.
Well, like our pal Meat Loaf once said, two out of three ain't bad. Here's the meat of a rejection letter I received yesterday:
Thank you for your query. I regret to say, it's not a perfect fit for me-- although I do think your query is well-written and intriguing, so I would encourage you to keep trying! (and no, that's not part of the form response).
Now, here's the thing. Most agents will send form rejections, simply because they receive such an enormous number of queries on any given day. In fact, some state in their submission guidelines that they likely won't reply at all after x number of weeks if they aren't interested. So to get rejected like this actually got me a little excited. I'd sweated blood over that particular stinkin' query letter, so for this agent to recognize that I could write and to find the story intriguing was huge for me. Arguably not a big deal to an outsider, but any kind of encouragement like this coming from someone in the industry when it isn't expected was pretty cool. It makes me feel I'm on the right track. And maybe, just maybe someday......
And incidentally, anyone reading this off the Facebook link who wants to read this particular book I'm referencing here - tell me you want to! It's really, really hard for me to ask people to read because it feels like I'm fishing for compliments, but if you don't mind my saying, it's a hell of a book. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll think, you'll put it down with great emotional satisfaction. You let me know you want to see it, and I'll send you a pdf version so fast it will give your inbox hiccups.
I received some nice complimentary bits of encouragement which I didn't reply to because in retrospect it was too easy to interpret what I had said as fishing for compliments, which is something that generally I feel very uneasy about. For the record - I know I'm a good writer, and even if I wasn't I wouldn't stop writing anyway. Writing is more about the personal satisfaction than whether or not anyone else is impressed. I know when I write a book, there are two or three times when I'll have a perfectly constructed line in there, some sentence or idea that is just so flawless that it can take the reader out of the story for a moment just to reread it and admire it. My favorite part of reading is discovering lines like that, and if I do come up with a couple of those on my own, I'm very proud of it. My point of comparison was that Nick Hornby comes up with a perfect line like that several times in every chapter instead of a few times in every book. I'm not going to get all Duncan about it (Hornby reference, if you're lucky enough to be in the know), but he is pretty genius. And after all, he asked us to read, so I don't mind expressing my opinion about him. Even if it isn't on an obsessive message board.
Anyway. For the benefit of anyone who tried to offer me encouragement after my Hornby post, I'd like to share something with you. I submitted my first query letters to a handful of literary agents for the book we call Infinity these days. The query is you introducing yourself and the work to the agent, and hoping that they will notice that (a) you have an interesting story told, and (b) you can write well enough to be taken seriously, so they will (c) ask to see more or all of your manuscript and offer representation.
Well, like our pal Meat Loaf once said, two out of three ain't bad. Here's the meat of a rejection letter I received yesterday:
Thank you for your query. I regret to say, it's not a perfect fit for me-- although I do think your query is well-written and intriguing, so I would encourage you to keep trying! (and no, that's not part of the form response).
Now, here's the thing. Most agents will send form rejections, simply because they receive such an enormous number of queries on any given day. In fact, some state in their submission guidelines that they likely won't reply at all after x number of weeks if they aren't interested. So to get rejected like this actually got me a little excited. I'd sweated blood over that particular stinkin' query letter, so for this agent to recognize that I could write and to find the story intriguing was huge for me. Arguably not a big deal to an outsider, but any kind of encouragement like this coming from someone in the industry when it isn't expected was pretty cool. It makes me feel I'm on the right track. And maybe, just maybe someday......
And incidentally, anyone reading this off the Facebook link who wants to read this particular book I'm referencing here - tell me you want to! It's really, really hard for me to ask people to read because it feels like I'm fishing for compliments, but if you don't mind my saying, it's a hell of a book. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll think, you'll put it down with great emotional satisfaction. You let me know you want to see it, and I'll send you a pdf version so fast it will give your inbox hiccups.
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