Do I contradict myself?Formal study of poetry can yield dramatic and beautiful results for a songwriter. In that spirit, I am going to offer a few ideas for my songwriting readers that might inspire, refresh, or ignite that spark.
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
-Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
Formality
I have a hard and fast rule when it comes to songwriting: If you wouldn't say it, don't sing it. Write like you're having a conversation with someone that you really, really love talking to, or better yet, talking with. Informal language, small words, and lines that flow easily over the lips and into the ears are vital parts of the kind of songwriting that can draw a listener in and make them feel it. You can be as profound as you want, but keep the $5 words to a minimum (unless the price of verbiage has gone up along with everything else, in which case I mean $10 words).
Also keep your structure informal—say what you want to say. Don't worry about rhyming stuff (unless your song really needs it) or having an exact number of syllables per line. It's hard enough to write a good song without piling all those conditions on.
One last rule: Use the fewest number of words possible to say what you mean to say. Be succinct. Don't ramble. Keep your songs tight and focused, and they'll pack a wallop.
I'm gonna contradict myself
I just wrote a song using all haiku. A haiku is a short poem and only three lines, in which the first line contains five syllables, the second seven, and the last line five syllables again. A great haiku can contain a universe in seventeen syllables—all the beauty, magic and wonder of human comprehension distilled into three short lines. Or sheer silliness, intense passion, bawdy rambunctiousness, or the simple mystery of an every-day miracle.
Why the sudden devotion to structure? I started texting a friend in haiku a while back, at first sort of as a joke, and then because I can. Anything you say with a haiku sounds instantly more important and profound. Seriously, try it. At any rate, I now find myself thinking in haiku a lot, and the first stanza of this song just fell from my fingers whole in an instant. I was working on a rather dark and swirly guitar riff, and they seemed to go together. So I decided, just for my own entertainment, to write the whole thing as haiku stanzas—even the chorus. Interestingly, it changed my voice enough that it gave me a song that sounded fresh and unique as well as thoughtful and elegant.
Internal rhyming
I love internal rhyme. There are several ways to do this, the most famous by far being:
“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”Lather, rinse, repeat.
Another useful kind of internal rhyme is when you rhyme words in the middle of lines instead of at the end. For example:
Don't try to fight this babyOblique or indirect rhyming
We'll light the night up with this love
This is a clever thing, because it allows you to rhyme in the ballpark, but you don't have to be a slave to the exact rhyme, like moon and Joon. I once rhymed breakfast and reckless in a verse, and my friend and fellow songwriter Rachel Sutcliffe recently rhymed horror with water in a chorus—and it was awesome. I've also rhymed wrong with morning, which is a bigger stretch, but it worked for the song it was in.
Alliteration
Tongue twisters are easier when you put them to music. It's risky, because if you lose it, you lose it and you can say some wacky stuff instead of what you were trying to sing. But when it works, it can be magic. Writers like Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe were masters of alliteration and internal rhyme. William Blake, too. It took me about a week to teach myself to sing “where the prairie grasses glisten in the dew,” but it was worth it. You try saying it three times fast. (Prairie glasses gristen, plairie grasses plisten, glairie glasses glisten...)
The whole enchilada
Good old Marc Bolan, bless 'im. Now that's a poet. Here's what I mean:
Well, you're dirty and sweetIt's perfectly conversational—in fact I'm reasonably certain we've all had similar conversations (that we don't tell the kids about). It uses internal rhyme, it's got some alliteration going on with all those bs and ls in the second line. He uses oblique rhyme with “sweet” and “weak,” and more internal oblique rhyme with “I love you” and “upon you.” And, bonus, it freakin' rocks. I defy you to get this song out of your head.
Clad in black, don't look back, and I love you
You're dirty and sweet, oh yeah
Well, you're slim and you're weak
You got the teeth of the hydra upon you
You're dirty, sweet and you're my girl
- Marc Bolan, “Get it On (Bang a Gong)”
It's a mojo thang
Anything that imbues you with the power of the muses is fair game. Okay, let me qualify that a bit— anything legal, ethical, and victimless. What I mean to say is, if stepping outside a certain formula or structure that you find yourself boxed into allows you to write something free and wonderful, do it. Break all the rules immediately and often. If stepping into a structure takes you outside your box, then learn some rules so you can break 'em later. It's like putting on a costume and pretending to be somebody else for a while—it's a refreshing little break that can be hedonistic and inspiring in a multitude of ways.
Gayla Drake Paul is a guitarist, songwriter and writer, working as a soloist and with the Gayla Drake Paul Trio. Her CD, How Can I Keep From Singing, is in the Ten Essential CDs for Acoustic Guitarists at digitaldreamdoor.com. Her new CD, Trio Plus Three: The Luckiest Woman, can be purchased at CDBaby.com.
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For the first time in the band’s history, the Dawes lineup for Oh Brother consisted of just Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith (left and right).
Goldsmith’s lyrics spoke to me the loudest, with lines like “Well, you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks / Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it’s starin’ right back” (a casual Nietzsche paraphrase); and “Oh, the snowfall this time of year / It’s not what Birmingham is used to / I get the feeling that I brought it here / And now I’m taking it away.” The way his words painted a portrait of the sincere, sentimental man behind them, along with his cozy, unassuming guitar work and the band’s four-part harmonies, had me hooked.
Nothing Is Wrong and Stories Don’t End came next, and I happily gobbled up more folksy fodder in tracks like “If I Wanted,” “Most People,” and “From a Window Seat.” But 2015’s All Your Favorite Bands, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Folk Albumschart, didn’t land with me, and by the time 2016’s We’re All Gonna Die was released, it was clear that Goldsmith had shifted thematically in his writing. A friend drew a thoughtful Warren Zevon comparison to the single, “When the Tequila Runs Out”—a commentary on vapid, conceited, American-socialite party culture—but it still didn’t really do it for me. I fell off the Dawes train a bit, and became somewhat oblivious to their three full-lengths that followed.
Oh Brotheris Goldsmith’s latest addition to the Dawes songbook, and I’m grateful to say that it’s brought me back. After having done some catching up, I’d posit that it’s the second work in the third act, or fall season, of his songwriting—where 2022’s Misadventures of Doomscrollercracked open the door, Oh Brother swings it wide. And it doesn’t have much more than Dawes’ meat and potatoes, per se, in common with acts one or two. Some moodiness has stayed—as well as societal disgruntlement and the arrangement elements that first had me intoxicated. But then there’s the 7/4 section in the middle of “Front Row Seat”; the gently unwinding, quiet, intimate jazz-club feel of “Surprise!”; the experimentally percussive, soft-spoken “Enough Already”; and the unexpected, dare I say, Danny Elfman-esque harmonic twists and turns in the closing track, “Hilarity Ensues.”
The main engine behind Dawes, the Goldsmith brothers are both native “Angelinos,” having been born and raised in the L.A. area. Taylor is still proud to call the city his home.
Photo by Jon Chu
“I have this working hypothesis that who you are as a songwriter through the years is pretty close to who you are in a dinner conversation,” Goldsmith tells me in an interview, as I ask him about that thematic shift. “When I was 23, if I was invited to dinner with grownups [laughs], or just friends or whatever, and they say, ‘How you doin’, Taylor?’ I probably wouldn’t think twice to be like, ‘I’m not that good. There’s this girl, and … I don’t know where things are at—can I share this with you? Is that okay?’ I would just go in in a way that’s fairly indiscreet! And I’m grateful to that version of me, especially as a writer, because that’s what I wanted to hear, so that’s what I was making at the time.
“But then as I got older, it became, ‘Oh, maybe that’s not an appropriate way to answer the question of how I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ve spent enough years thinking about me! What does it feel like to turn the lens around?’” he continues, naming Elvis Costello and Paul Simon as inspirations along the way through that self-evolution. “Also, trying to be mindful of—I had strengths then that I don’t have now, but I have strengths now that I didn’t have then. And now it’s time to celebrate those. Even in just a physical way, like hearing Frank Zappa talking about how his agility as a guitar player was waning as he got older. It’s like, that just means that you showcase different aspects of your skills.
“I am a changing person. It would be weird if I was still writing the same way I was when I was 23. There would probably be some weird implications there as to who I’d be becoming as a human [laughs].”
Taylor Goldsmith considers Oh Brother, the ninth full-length in Dawes’ catalog, to be the beginning of a new phase of Dawes, containing some of his most unfiltered, unedited songwriting.
Since its inception, the engine behind Dawes has been the brothers Goldsmith, with Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums and sometimes vocal harmonies. But they’ve always had consistent backup. For the first several years, that was Wylie Gelber on bass and Tay Strathairn on keyboards. On We’re All Gonna Die, Lee Pardini replaced Strathairn and has been with the band since. Oh Brother, however, marks the departure of Gelber and Pardini.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is an intense time; this is a vulnerable time,’” remarks Goldsmith, who says that their parting was supportive and loving, but still rocked him and Griffin. “You get a glimpse of your vulnerability in a way that you haven’t felt in a long time when things are just up and running. For a second there, we’re like, ‘We’re getting a little rattled—how do we survive this?’”
They decided to pair up with producer Mike Viola, a close family friend, who has also worked with Mandy Moore—Taylor’s spouse—along with Panic! At the Disco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis. “[We knew that] he understands all of the parameters of that raw state. And, you know, I always show Mike my songs, so he was aware of what we had cookin’,” says Goldsmith.
Griffin stayed behind the kit, but Taylor took over on bass and keys, the latter of which he has more experience with than he’s displayed on past releases. “We’ve made records where it’s very tempting to appeal to your strengths, where it’s like, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I’m just gonna nail it,’” he says. “Then there’s records that we make where we really push ourselves into territories where we aren’t comfortable. That contributed to [Misadventures of Doomscroller] feeling like a living, breathing thing—very reactive, very urgent, very aware. We were paying very close attention. And I would say the same goes for this.”
That new terrain, says Goldsmith, “forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do. I’m really excited in that sense, because it’s like this is the first album of a new phase.”
“That forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do.”
In proper folk (or even folk-rock) tradition, the music of Dawes isn’t exactly riddled with guitar solos, but that’s not to say that Goldsmith doesn’t show off his chops when the timing is right. Just listen to the languid, fluent lick on “Surprise!”, the shamelessly prog-inspired riff in the bridge of “Front Row Seat,” and the tactful, articulate line that threads through “Enough Already.” Goldsmith has a strong, individual sense of phrasing, where his improvised melodies can be just as biting as his catalog’s occasional lyrical jabs at presumably toxic ex-girlfriends, and just as melancholy as his self-reflective metaphors, all the while without drawing too much attention to himself over the song.
Of course, most of our conversation revolves around songwriting, as that’s the craft that’s the truest and closest to his identity. “There’s an openness, a goofiness—I even struggle to say it now, but—an earnestness that goes along with who I am, not only as a writer but as a person,” Goldsmith elaborates. “And I think it’s important that those two things reflect one another. ’Cause when you meet someone and they don’t, I get a little bit weirded out, like, ‘What have I been listening to? Are you lying to me?’” he says with a smile.
Taylor Goldsmith's Gear
Pictured here performing live in 2014, Taylor Goldsmith has been the primary songwriter for all of Dawes' records, beginning with 2009’s North Hills.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster
- Gibson ES-345
- Radocaster (made by Wylie Gelber)
Amps
- ’64 Fender Deluxe
- Matchless Laurel Canyon
Effects
- 29 Pedals EUNA
- Jackson Audio Bloom
- Ibanez Tube Screamer with Keeley mod
- Vintage Boss Chorus
- Vintage Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- Strymon Flint
- Strymon El Capistan
Strings
- Ernie Ball .010s
In Goldsmith’s songwriting process, he explains that he’s learned to lean away from the inclination towards perfectionism. Paraphrasing something he heard Father John Misty share about Leonard Cohen, he says, “People think you’re cultivating these songs, or, ‘I wouldn’t deign to write something that’s beneath me,’ but the reality is, ‘I’m a rat, and I’ll take whatever I can possibly get, and then I’ll just try to get the best of it.’
“Ever since Misadventures of Doomscroller,” he adds, “I’ve enjoyed this quality of, rather than try to be a minimalist, I want to be a maximalist. I want to see how much a song can handle.” For the songs on Oh Brother, that meant that he decided to continue adding “more observations within the universe” of “Surprise!”, ultimately writing six verses. A similar approach to “King of the Never-Wills,” a ballad about a character suffering from alcoholism, resulted in four verses.
“The economy of songwriting that we’re all taught would buck that,” says Goldsmith. “It would insist that I only keep the very best and shed something that isn’t as good. But I’m not going to think economically. I’m not going to think, ‘Is this self-indulgent?’
Goldsmith’s songwriting has shifted thematically over the years, from more personal, introspective expression to more social commentary and, at times, even satire, in songs like We’re All Gonna Die’s “When the Tequila Runs Out.”
Photo by Mike White
“I don’t abide that term being applied to music. Because if there’s a concern about self-indulgence, then you’d have to dismiss all of jazz. All of it. You’d have to dismiss so many of my most favorite songs. Because in a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.” (He elaborates that, if Bob Dylan had trimmed back any of the verses on “Desolation Row,” it would have deprived him of the unique experience it creates for him when he listens to it.)
One of the joys of speaking with Goldsmith is just listening to his thought processes. When I ask him a question, he seems compelled to share every backstory to every detail that’s going through his head, in an effort to both do his insights justice and to generously provide me with the most complete answer. That makes him a bit verbose, but not in a bad way, because he never rambles. There is an endpoint to his thoughts. When he’s done, however, it takes me a second to realize that it’s then my turn to speak.
To his point on artistic self-indulgence, I offer that there’s no need for artists to feel “icky” about self-promotion—that to promote your art is to celebrate it, and to create a shared experience with your audience.
“I hear what you’re saying loud and clear; I couldn’t agree more,” Goldsmith replies. “But I also try to be mindful of this when I’m writing, like if I’m going to drag you through the mud of, ‘She left today, she’s not coming back, I’m a piece of shit, what’s wrong with me, the end’.... That might be relatable, that might evoke a response, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily helpful … other than dragging someone else through the shit with me.
“In a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.”
“So, if I’m going to share, I want there to be something to offer, something that feels like: ‘Here’s a path that’s helped me through this, or here’s an observation that has changed how I see this particular experience.’ It’s so hard to delineate between the two, but I feel like there is a difference.”
Naming the opening track “Mister Los Angeles,” “King of the Never-Wills,” and even the title track to his 2015 chart-topper, “All Your Favorite Bands,” he remarks, “I wouldn’t call these songs ‘cool.’ Like, when I hear what cool music is, I wouldn’t put those songs next to them [laughs]. But maybe this record was my strongest dose of just letting me be me, and recognizing what that essence is rather than trying to force out certain aspects of who I am, and force in certain aspects of what I’m not. I think a big part of writing these songs was just self-acceptance,” he concludes, laughing, “and just a whole lot of fishing.”
YouTube It
Led by Goldsmith, Dawes infuses more rock power into their folk sound live at the Los Angeles Ace Hotel in 2023.
