Measure for Measure: How to write a song and other mysteries.

Lately I’ve been reading the memoirs of the 20th century Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich. In one section, Shostakovich talks about Shakespeare, whose work was banned by Stalin. “Shakespeare speaks to us like a small child,” the composer writes. “When you talk to a child the words aren’t important. It’s what lies behind the words — the mood, the music.” He goes on: “When I speak to small children I often don’t delve in to the meaning of their babble I just listen to the timbres. It’s the same with Shakespeare. When I read Shakespeare, I give myself up to the flow. It doesn’t happen often. But those are the best moments. I read — and listen to his music.”

Shostakovich’s words about the babble of children struck me. It made me think about listening to my 2-year-old son sing The Alphabet Song, over and over, edited down to snippets of the last 14 notes (“Now I know my no my no …”), about one third of the song. I realize I do the same thing — machining melodies, grinding them into my bones and daily movements.

The melody will insist on what it needs: words that do it justice.

I started violin with the Suzuki method when I was 4. The “mother tongue” was the basic tenet of this method: while kids are malleable and learning language, teach them the language of music through repetition and molding. This is the way melodies got into my bones. I would chew my cereal to melodies. I would breathe in and out to melody and at some point early on I began to whistle. If I wasn’t sleeping or talking, I was whistling.

At the moment I’ve got half a dozen strong, fully realized melodies all filed away in my head. When I’m waiting for a plane or walking across town I can mentally access any of the melodies, press “play” and begin fiddling with them. What are the variables? Too many. I’m an improviser in search of a melody.



The goal is not to arrive at a perfectly crafted melody and stay there but to find fertile ground where that spark of conception keeps firing every time I play. I’ve learned that the most successful songs I’ve written — and by that I mean the most fun to play — are the most simple, like a Cole Porter standard, ripe for interpretation.

Now is a good time to start to marry words to these melodies. My aim is to give you a window to this process with the disclaimer that it might get messy and I could very well fail completely.

Here’s a new melody: what does this melody want to hear? To find out, I start babbling in the shape of the melody. This gives me an idea of what kind of words feel right and every so often something true, something I care about, slips in to the babble. Sometimes I’ll keep a theme at the front of my consciousness as well and ask myself what I want to say. For instance, I’ve been thinking about what a relief it is to find that everyone is pretty much a disappointment. This may sound cynical but I don’t mean it as a bad thing. Another way to say it is “everyone is struggling, even the bullies.” Plopping such a revelation into a chorus rarely works and can lead to clunky songwriting. But it can also help tease out a natural way to say it from your subconscious until it settles in the grooves of the melody. It’s sort of there to be ignored but you give it time to see if it gets under your skin.

Related More From Measure for Measure Read previous contributions to this series.

I find this beginning phase exciting and strange. A time when you’re not sure what’s going to come out of you. Pregnant, but with what sort of creature?

This first demo is full of strong melodies. Almost too strong, like every section is a chorus. This will happen in the first stages. It’s like an incubator for ideas until you get a sense of their mass. Melodies break off and join others until they settle where they belong. This first demo I want to work out here has an A, B, C and D section.

The A section crept in to my head as I was boarding a plane somewhere on tour:

I used to say if you have to write it down or record it it’s not worth remembering, but that was before I had a kid (the best and most effective distraction ever). Now I don’t take any chances so I whistled the melody into my phone. I haven’t needed to refer to this rough demo. It was just for peace of mind. When I got home I started making violin loops with all the counterpoint I’ve been hearing. Here it is, layer by layer:

Section B has been on a constant loop since I’ve been home. For three weeks now it has dominated my waking moments — and some of my sleeping ones. I recently caught myself whistling it in a movie theater during the film. It sounds corny to say but these melodies are like very loyal, even annoying, companions. You might be grinding your teeth to them but at least you’re not lonely or despondent. So this first example is from three days ago when the melody was more fluid. It’s more of a fertile bed for ideas to flow over:

The next day a clear shape emerged and it’s playing very loud and constant in my head:

I am my own control subject. This is it. I’m certain. The melody will insist on what it needs: words that do it justice. Something that I will believe in every night I sing it for the next number of years. There are so many facets to performing, so many human moments on display that make it a distinct moment in time. It’s not progress and complexity that make things new. I feel different every moment of the day and my music needs to be flexible enough to accommodate this.

You can hear I’ve begun intoning word-like fragments to the melody to get a sense of what it wants. Nonsense for the time being. Place holders. I took a long walk today and started honing in on the first five syllables. There are a lot of possibilities with this pattern. I kept coming back to “a capital crime.” I don’t think this is it but it fits. It might take me a year to get something. What I need is a particle of something true. Something with barbs on it so it can snag other ideas flowing down stream, and they gather until they dam up the river and there’s your song.

The C section feels like an arrival, and most likely our chorus. The D section is very strong but will probably break off from this song and become its own thing.

And here’s all the parts sort of glued together with some word fragments but nothing I feel committed to as of yet.

I had a revelation in the middle of a restless night. I’m getting the urge to write about something that’s happening right now that’s too personal and painful to discuss in this forum. But then why is it O.K. to put it in a song? Why is the song safe? Is it safe? And I realize that I might be staying away from this subject because of this essay and that makes me want to scrap it. But here it is as it’s beginning to exist. There’s no telling how it will turn out.

Andrew Bird is a Chicago-based singer, songwriter, violinist, guitarist and whistler. He has released 11 albums, including most recently “Noble Beast,” “Break It Yourself” and “Hands of Glory.”