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songs

SF: Do you think you're still learning as a songwriter? Do you think that's something that, when you sit down to write songs, you're still honing your craft and getting better as you go?

JK: I know I'm still learning. I'm elated that we're still learning, and I think I'll always be learning. Charlie Burchill and I have written over 300 songs. They've not all been recorded, but we've written that amount. Yet, I can tell you that when you sit down and you start a new song, you always feel you're in a different game. You always feel like it's a different puzzle. You always feel it's a different combination you have to crack.

JK: There might be some rules, there might be some general things, but from the start, it's so subjective. No one knows. Your sitting there is an act of faith in itself that the music has done something to you that is going to work on someone else. Who the hell knows? All I can tell you is we enjoy working on that puzzle so much.

JK: And it is work. I will tell you, the one thing I have changed since the beginning days, is that I don't believe in The Muse. You know, you just gotta wait for The Muse to strike. It's true, some days you get lucky - a song comes into your head from nowhere. But in general, it's turning up and doing the work. Writing through the good, the bad and the indifferent. And that's where you find the nuggets.

Songfacts Interview
March 2018





There is little doubt in my mind that the most important action we took at an early age was to deal with the challenge of learning how to write our own unique songs.

Not that it was easy; far from it.

Can you imagine attempting to learn a language without any help?

That is how it felt in our situation as we started out by throwing ourselves in at the deep end of an art that revolved around the building blocks of verses, choruses, bridges, hooks and middle eights. And that was only in dealing with the music.

What about the lyrics?

How do you become an engaging lyric writer?

And how do you go about merging those lyrics with the music?

Hundreds of self written songs later, still neither Charlie or I can tell you the answer to that.

At the heart the process is till a mystery to us, likewise Bruce Springsteen who recently stated "The mechanics of songwriting is only understandable up to a certain point."

Most probably there is a 'gift' involved in great songwriting, one that perhaps some are born with? But having a gift is never enough.

As someone once said: "You could be given a black stallion as a gift? But you’d still need to learn how to ride it - without falling off and killing yourself!"

Being a successful live act has unquestionably brought so much satisfaction to us. The adrenaline involved in coming face to face with audiences who love the music, makes it by far the most enjoyable part of our existence.

But you can’t be a great live act, one that stands on stage and holds an audience's full attention for hours night after night, without having a set full of great live songs.

Can you?

Jim
March 21st 2021