Everybody Wants To Be A Cat (6/5/14)

I have a tendency to come to things late. Not exactly an early adopter. When I come to them I embrace them whole heartedly though. Game of Thrones, Battlestar Galactica, Spotify, the iPod (as opposed to non branded 'MP3 players', the iPhone as opposed to Android. I discover things after the rest of the world then become evangelical.

Case in point:

I spent the Bank Holiday Monday morning driving to Blackpool and back. I spent the evening of Bank Holiday Monday being alternately elated and frustrated by Liverpool but have written about that elsewhere. I was supposed to be cracking through the second act of a two act full length (ie 80 minutes plus) comedy play for a competition run by Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre.

The first 46 pages are done. Act One is done. First read through of the first 15 pages indicated that, yes, I can write comedy thank you very much. I can write basically bloody anything me. However. I have spent the day in the troughs of utter despair, 'Arsenal '89' style despair. Not exactly in the mood for writing comedy. I've managed 8 pages but it was somewhat akin to pulling teeth. Back to it tomorrow. We go again and all that.

But that wasn't what I was going to tell you about.

Bank Holiday Monday. Blackpool. Parents had gone away for the weekend. I'd driven them to Blackpool on Friday, I was picking them up on Monday. No breakfast, stopped at Charnock Richard for a coffee from Starbucks who weren't doing anything espresso based as their machine had broken. One job, Starbucks, one job.

Anyway. For entertainment I had the iPod on, working my way through the quite magnificent SodaJerker on songwriting podcasts. I'd been tipped to these quite a while ago but hadn't got round to them. Late arrival and all that. For each podcast the two lads who constitute SodaJerker interview a notable songwriter on their process and inspiration. I'd picked out the artists that were of most interest to me; Billy Bragg, Paddy McAloon, Johnny Marr.

Next up was the legendary Richard M. Sherman so for the trip to Blackpool I listened to two lads from Liverpool interview a man who has soundtracked all our lives.

Richard M Sherman? You may not know the name but you know the work. You know the work that Richard and his brother Robert carried out in the 60s; Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Jungle Book, The Aristocats, the two wrote every song for those films. It's an incredible body of work, an incredible craft, an unbelievable skill set; creating catchy songs that work within the body of a narrative but are strong enough to stand on their own, catchy enough for children to remember but sophisticated enough to still appeal to adult ears.

Obviously this includes 'Bare Necessities' and 'Trust in Me' and 'Chim Chim Cheree' and the one that gives this blog it's title and obviously it includes the one where they invented a word that nothing could possibly rhyme with and then rhymed it over and over again (SuperCaliFragiLiciousExpiAliDocious - and I guarantee that I've mis-spelt that) but it also includes 'Feed The Birds' - possibly the saddest, most honest, most moving song ever to be found in what's supposed to be a children's film; a song that talks about loneliness and goodness and the ease, joy and beauty in helping others.

And the most notable thing of all this? Richard Sherman thinks this was easy. Thinks that the fact that they were presented with scenarios and characters and plot lines meant that writing these songs was easy, lives under the impression that it's harder to sit in a room and produce music from nothing with no end aim in sight.

He was humble and honest and willing to impart any knowledge that he might have. A man who has brought such joy to (genuinely, literally) millions and he regards himself as no different to anybody else. As did every other songwriter that the Soda Jerker guys interviewed. No egos involved, all of them as interested in their interviewers as their interviewers were in them. All still wanting to learn, all sure that there was more they could know.

Which may be my point; if people this talented are still trying, still sure that they can improve, still sure that there is more to know, more to do then surely that attitude can apply to all of us?

Or maybe the point is just this - listen to the SodaJerker podcast, it's smart.