Looking up this week from getting a reggae backing to sound like St Ann rather than St Felicity, I spotted the small dark mist in the usual corner behind the left monitor speaker. I have sometimes believed absolutely that this is my best muse, back from a pizza run to the outer starbelt. Or maybe just the golden ring around Uranus. Anyhoo…It seems to bring inspiration in a dark way: more Keith Richards than Cliff Richard, and I feel the urge to write something that involves leather, whips and a snare drum that sounds like Pavarotti hitting the water from the top board. I dig out my file called Heavy Riffs That AC/DC Lost Under The Driver’s Seat. It would help if the word MURDER appeared in the first lyric line: that always gets the bowie knives out. As Sam Goldwyn said: Start with an exploding volcano and build up from there to a climax.
I can’t emphasise how important the first two lines of the first verse are, in any song.This is where you the artist set the hook in their miniscule attention spans or not. If you simper your way into a song, as per a style I like to call Captain Cliche, you’ve probably lost them before the second guitar comes in....