Bruce Madole, Writer

One of my most long-standing musical friendships is with a musical mentor and collaborator, JK Gulley, a fabulous guitarist/producer and songwriter.  There is a song of his that will always be one of my favourites, called In My Father's Field.  I know there's a great recording of it by John Cowan (of New Grass Revival, etc).  I've heard JK perform it live, on several occasions. The song makes me cry because it is siimple, emotional, powerful, and truthful.  Just hearing it is like the deep heartfelt sigh of contentment and relief when you finally arrive home after a long journey and settle down into your favourite chair, or a long hot bath. I hope someone will play it at my funeral someday, so I'll rest easy.  It's that kind of a song -- written from close to the bone.  Here's a snippet:

In My Father's Field, by JK Gulley

In my father's field, that's where you will find me
at the end of a winding road
by the shade of a lonely tree
the home of his childhood and sweet memories
in my father's field 

I go there for comfort, I go there for peace
I go there for freedom, I got there for me
and it does my heart good to touch my roots
in my father's field. 

etc

You can find the John Cowan performance of this on YouTube -- I recommend it. 

In my own experience, these songs are the hardest to write, and the most worthwhile.  They're hard to write, because it can be so difficult to get past all of the personal baggage to the song itself, in a form that actually communicates and evokes emotional response from others.  As I have written on other occasions: if a song makes you cry, that's catharsis -- if it makes other people cry, that's craft.  If you can do both, it's probably magic.

I have tried, many times, to finish a song called "After The Shooting Stops" -- I shared a rough acoustic version of this song once, in the Acoustic Guitar website.  The song is based on a long-ago experience of a shooting in our local high-school.  I wasn't even in the middle of things, and yet it profoundly affected me, as it did so many of my friends.  I will probably record this, someday.  

Iris DeMent's song, My Life, is another of my favourite examples of this kind of song, written from a place of introspection and feeling of insignificance.  But her chorus is about small comforts that may be the most important of all:

Chorus from Iris DeMent's My Life: 

But I gave joy to my mother
and I made my lover smile
and I can comfort my friends when they're hurting
and make it seem better for a while. 

Wow.  How simple and profound can you get?

Some years ago, I lost a dear friend, an agent that I had worked with for years. Her name was Morgan (Sandy) White, and she died suddenly, of cancer. One minute she was feeling not well, and within a couple of weeks, it seemed, she was gone.   She was buried on a hilltop, near Lake Simcoe, and I remember the details of that day, how the sky looked, the clouds of soaring birds overhead. At her wake, I promised her family that I would write a song for her, which I did.  I wrote it on the drive home that night, and the song was called So Rudely Interrupted. I had it demoed a few years later (with vocals by Jay Riehl, guitar from Wendell Ferguson.  You can hear it on the website.) It's a truthful song about a lifelong conversation, interrupted, and there's a little bit in there of an honest reflection of how even a person of faith may struggle with coming to terms with loss and grief.  And there were echoes and feelings there from the loss of my own mother, some years earlier. So whether that song ever serves any other purpose, I wrote it from a deep emotional place, which is what I mean when I say "close to the bone".  You know ... deep down, where it hurts.  

With every kind of song that I might choose to write, and love to write, and to perform, these are the kinds of songs that I will always be proud of having written. Maybe, they are a part of what gives our work meaning. 

cheers
Bruce

 

I think everybody starts writing songs in their own way, from their own place.  Most of us face a giant learning curve in doing so -- Ian Tyson's first song was "Four Strong Winds."  A classic.  How does that happen?  I don't know, but it didn't happen that way for me.  I've had to learn, and to make matters more interesting, I started late. I learned slow.  Looking back, an objective observer could be forgiven for wondering why I didn't put the clues together sooner.  But it took me years to discover that I was a songwriter. And more years to learn what that means.

To begin with, I was a poet.  From early grade school, up to and including my university years, that's what I planned to become.  I wrote poetry.  I loved music, with a passion. But I was a poet, if you had asked me. 

I loved music. I loved to sing. I loved to improvise for hours at a time on the common room piano (though usually, in the small hours of the morning when no one could hear and be driven away by accidental music).  I constantly borrowed my friends' guitars, to plink painfully away, just as I had frequently borrowed my Dad's guitar.  I never actually bought a guitar ... I just borrowed them.  (But if anyone had asked, I was a poet.  I even wrote poetry ... about music. )  
 
OK ... so I didn't actually own a guitar of my own yet.  My very first guitar was a wedding gift from my beloved, around our first anniversary, because in that first year of marriage, we were poorer than dryer lint, but that's another story.  But eventually, after I actually owned a guitar, I got involved in trying to write a song or two, at church.  And eventually, it dawned on me that the love of words and the love of music did not have to be mutually exclusive; they could converge, and did, in an increasingly undeniable urge to write my own songs. Following from that conclusion, it dawned on me that I must also be a songwriter. I was already writing for my daily crust -- journalism, technical writing, public relations and so on -- but I could clearly see that my early lyrical efforts were nothing like the great songs I'd grown up listening to.  I did not yet know how to begin following in their footsteps, much less defining my own path, or finding my own voice. 

So I set out to study the craft of songwriting. I joined groups that offered workshops, like the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA), Songwriters Association of Canada(SAC) and the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI).  I bought books about craft, I read articles, and I began to pay closer attention to evidence, before my eyes (and in my ears) about how songs worked.  

The most important decision I made, starting out, was never to let the challenges and frustrations of this path deflect me from continuing to learn.  

What I discovered is that songwriting is an identity, not just an activity.  You may or may not be writing at any given moment, but if you write songs, you are a songwriter. You are a songwriter when you are thinking about writing, when you are desperately procrastinating, when you are sad and depressed and crushed at some failure to really nail what you thought was a great idea.  And you are a songwriter when you are struggling to exercise your craft, and actually write.  At all of these times, and with or without success as it is commonly measured, you are a songwriter. It's probably not your entire identity, but it's still an important part.  It matters.  

And if that is your situation, as it was mine, we are walking down the same path. If you are stalled, get started again. Join a workshop, and find the company of others who understand this.  

Life is short -- write your songs! 

Best regards

Bruce
 

 I am constantly being reminded that it is possible to break out of a musical rut, or a mental one, and to create something that is fresh and powerful and memorable.  There is always that tension:  the desire to observe forms and respect traditions, to create something that is in some sense recognizable as to its genre and its style, and the contrary desire to break out with some work that is wildly creative and unfettered by any sense of normality.  I hear something that takes my breath away, that brings a tear, or triggers a big broad grin -- and I encounter a little voice that says to me:  you see! It IS possible to be creative and fresh.

One of my favourite examples goes back to the video by Paul Simon about the making of the Graceland album, in which he talks about his process.  He says, in that video, that he did not set out to "write hits", and that he was just trying to write songs that he was going to really like and feel satisfied with.  And what he wrote was possibly the greatest music of his career ... or arguably so.

There are other examples who shine for me -- John Prine's great quirky simplicity, Lyle Lovett, Iris DeMent (whose song "My Life" remains one of my all-time favourite examples of writing simple and close-to-the-bone).  I loved the Blue Shadows, and Beth Nielsen Chapman, and Pink's "Perfect", and a South African band called Juluka, and a great many other fine examples of musicians who found their way to a fresh and original place. The sweet thing is, every time I encounter those examples, wherever they are and whomever they may be, in whatever genre, I end up feeling just that bit more liberated, and empowered to take musical or lyrical chances.  But especially, I find that the more ruthless I am about trying to write with my own true voice (and not some oughta-be or wanna-be derivative), and about things that really matter to me, the closer I come to doing fresh work.

Just one of those thoughts that makes me go "hmmmmm".  

cheers all
Bruce
  

I wanted to thank the people who said "No". 

We always remember the people who said yes to us, who opened a door, made an introduction, agreed to cowrite, agreed to listen, to publish, or even to cut a song. Any list of milestones is a product of so many people who helped us take one step forward, or even stopped us from taking a step back.  My deepest thanks to all of you who have been a part of that progress.

Early on though, before any good things could happen, there were people who needed to tell me -- gently, humorously, bluntly, firmly, or with words of encouragement: No. Or even, not yet. Not yet there. Not yet good enough to be great. Needs more work, more inspiration, more perspiration. More ... something. Keep going. Work at your craft. I need to thank those people, all of you, for words of encouragement as well. Because I'm still working at it. 

Thanks to all of you.  I'll be knocking on the door again soon, God willing. 

I've been a songwriter for a long time now. And I've been a student of the craft, and once, a fair time ago, I was an NSAI Workshop Coordinator for pretty much an entire decade. And I've been guided and helped and "straightened out" on occasion by some great mentors and friends.  Lots of people have been really helpful to me. So, yes, I have thoughts and opinions and news to share from time to time.

Now that I've got a website, wisdom has it that I also need to communicate a bit of what I am doing and thinking, in a space just like this one. Which I have decided to do, right here.

I have been working on developing my own spin on a songwriting workshop, so stay tuned for more news about that, or even snippets of content. 

Why did I call this, The Confused Muse?  First, because I wanted to find something mildly humourous. Secondly, I chose it because songwriting requires both craft and inspiration, and the inspiration part is both deeply unpredictable and impossible to bottle. 

So I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts in this space, and will tune in to see what happens next.  I'm looking forward to it, myself. 

Bruce