The other day, The Chicago Tribune featured a satiric story about the death of Facts.

A sad story, but possibly true.

When I was a teenager, I’d often call the downtown Vancouver Public Library where the staff there would look up facts for me. Although it’s hard to believe now, they’d put me on hold and rummage through the appropriate reference books until they found the answers to the questions I’d asked. The librarians always seemed happy, and maybe even a little proud, to be able to help me in this way.

Later in life, a large part of my fascination with the computer revolution hinged on the very real possibility that facts would someday become easily and instantly available without the necessity of those phone calls. The internet tied all the computers together and it soon seemed as though we would presently have access to a worldwide library wherein all truth could be found.

I signed on with more passion and conviction than anyone I knew, and sure enough, the internet eventually became my personal and dependable fact repository. Then a strange thing began happening …

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I finished 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami last night. It was a big, engrossing magical book that took me both far away and deep inside. I didn’t want it to end.

Like Richard Ford’s brilliant books, 1Q84 made me want to write. It reminded me that no two people see this world and its passing minutes the same. It convinced me again that capturing and preserving the ephemeral moment and the random impression is worthwhile – if only for my own satisfaction and edification.

According to Chekhov,” Tamaru said, rising from his chair, “once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired.”

~ Haruki Murakami – 1Q84

Damn.

From ‘Ridley Walker’:

“the worl is ful of things waiting to happen, Thats the meat and boan of it right there. You myt think you can jus go here and there doing nothing. Happening nothing. You cant tho you bleeding cant. You put your self on any road and some thing wil show its self to you.”

From ‘The Moment Under the Moment’:

“Reality is ungraspable. For convenience we use a limited-reality consensus in which work can be done, transport arranged, and essential services provided. The real reality is something else–only the strangeness of it can be taken in…”

From ‘Frember’:

“Being is not a steady state but an occulting one: we are all of us a succession of stillness blurring into motion on the wheel of action, and it is in those spaces of black between the pictures that we find the heart of mystery in which we are never allowed to rest.”

God bless you, Russ.

Today’s Guardian Article

The Head of Orpheus

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

~ Steve Jobs – From his 2005 commencement address at Stanford

Any song you hear – live, online, on the radio or TV, on a computer playlist, CD, record or tape – is referred to in the music biz as either an “original” – a song written by the performer or performers you’re hearing – or a “cover” – a song written by someone else. Nazareth’s powerful 1975 version of “Love Hurts” was a cover, as was another of their hits; “This Flight Tonight”.

Nazareth

Joni Mitchell wrote “This Flight Tonight” and recorded it on her album “Blue” in 1971. The sparse recording features just Joni and her open-tuned guitar with a brief addition of extra voices and a slide guitar in the bridge. The focus, though, is on Joni’s urgent vocal delivery and introspective and regretful lyrics.

Joni Mitchell

Nazareth’s version of the song could not be more different. Manny Charlton’s driving electric guitar groove rocks hard and Dan McCafferty’s vocal adds a swaggering tension to the lyrics. This is one of the rare cover versions I like better than the original.

Nazareth’s reworking of “This Flight Tonight” is a radical but classic example of what’s called an “arrangement” – the changing of the presentation of a song in a way that stamps it with a new musical personality. Transforming a Joni Mitchell song into a rock anthem is no mean feat, and the band’s unique arrangement – the parts invented by the musicians (or an arranger or producer), the phrasing of the singer, the sequence of verses, choruses and bridge – was fundamental to the success of their recording. Nonetheless, the basic integrity of the song itself – the lyrics and the melody – remained the same.

In the case of all “cover” versions, the relationship between a song and it’s arrangement is simple: there can be no arrangement, without there first being a song to arrange. As a result, the recipient of the songwriting credits, and royalties, is equally clear and uncomplicated.

The members of Nazareth receive none of the songwriting royalties generated by “This Flight Tonight” or their version of “Love Hurts” – but their recordings of those songs have brought them other, significant, rewards.

For one thing, additional royalties are also paid by the record company to the artists themselves when copies of their records are sold or downloaded. A cover that becomes a hit can propel record sales – and those royalties – dramatically. Hits also make touring more likely. Live shows create additional income and help develop an audience that will buy the artist’s recordings and so on …

Covers have also been seen as a good way to attract and win over new fans. If someone already knows the song, the thinking goes, they’re half way to liking your recording of it. As an example, six of the fourteen songs on the Beatles’ first album were cover versions.

The other eight songs, though, were written by two members of the band – John Lennon and Paul McCartney – and this idea of the self-contained rock band, writing their own songs and playing their own instruments, arguably marked a turning point in the history of popular music – and of songwriting.

As song creation began taking place within autonomous bands, the traditional view of what a songwriter was – and what constituted songwriting – began to become less clear. The question of who was entitled to the songwriting credits – and royalties –began to come up more often.

I’ll start on Part Three now …

Joni Mitchell’s version of “This Fight Tonight”

Nazareth’s version of “This Flight Tonight”

Felice and Boudleaux Bryant were a hugely successful American husband-and-wife songwriting team. I’ve invoked their names hundreds of times over the years when asked about songwriting and songwriting royalties.

Felice & Boudleaux Bryant

They wrote 6000 songs and sold over 200 million records. Their list of hits includes “Bye Bye Love,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Love Hurts” and “Rocky Top.” The one I wave around while giving my songwriting speech is “Love Hurts”, a song I first heard in 1961.

I would never have imagined at the time – I was 11 – that those words and that melody came from anywhere other than Roy Orbison’s own tortured heart. He sang every word with conviction and sincerity and delivered every note of the melody as though it was occurring to him as he sang, there in front of the microphone in that mysterious non-place where, I imagined, hit records were created back then.

I suppose I believed, in an unquestioning and not very thorough way, that all the songs I heard on the radio were emotional communiques that originated with the singers performing them. It wasn’t till I started writing songs myself that I began to learn more, and think more seriously, about the song writer’s art.

By 1975, I’d co-written the eight songs on the first Trooper album. Two of those songs, “Baby Woncha Please Come Home” and “Good Ol’ General Hand Grenade” shared the Canadian charts that summer with another version of “Love Hurts” – this one recorded by a Scottish group called Nazareth.

Dan McCafferty sang the song with a ferocity not present in Orbison’s version. Roy’s “Love Hurts” was sad but resigned. Dan’s added anger (especially in the soaring middle eight) and a lick of righteous self pity. The “hurt” is overall more searing than Roy’s. I continue to love both, to this day.*

Most people are familiar with the Nazareth version and some will remember the earlier Orbison track, but fewer will have heard the very first recording of the song, by the Everly Brothers in 1960, or Jim Capaldi’s hit UK version, from 1975. For many, Jacob Lusk’s recent American Idol performance may be their only exposure to the song.†

Regardless, while all five of these strikingly different performances showcase the unique singers and musicians that created them, one important thread remains consistent throughout: the lyrics and melody wedded together by Felice and Boudleaux over fifty years ago.

The songwriting royalties generated by the record sales and airplay of all the versions of “Love Hurts” went to the Bryants and, now, to their heirs. This will be the case with the iTunes track released last week by Jacob Lusk and will continue to be the case if another talented artist or group chooses to record the song in the future.

I’ll return to another Nazareth hit, “This Flight Tonight” in part two – once I write it.

Roy Orbison’s cover of “Love Hurts”

Nazareth’s cover of “Love Hurts”

Jacob Lusk’s American Idol performance of “Love Hurts”

*I sang a verse of “Love Hurts” with Nazareth on my birthday in 2004.

† These are not the only covers of the song. To see a full list, containing over 40 versions (!), click here.

Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do?

Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied.

Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

Hemingway: Getting the words right.

(Via Shawn Blanc and Leo Babauta)

Here’s the email and attached photos I sent tonight to The Slickman Building (4th floor), somewhere in Britain. It documents my participation, again this year, in the SA4Q event, celebrating the 86th naming day of Russell Hoban. All around the world, pieces of yellow paper with quotes from Hoban books were left in public places – cafe tables, bookshops, park benches, telephone booths, train stations or anywhere the birthday celebrants deemed appropriate. The SA4QE (Slickman A4 Quotation Event) website lists 350 quotes that have been left, on previous birthdays, in big cities and small towns in 14 countries since 2002. Russell Hoban remains one of the most original writers of the twentieth century and one of my very favourites. Here’s what I sent:

Good evening,

Thanks again for this opportunity to participate!

Russell Hoban’s birthday began, in White Rock, British Columbia, Canada, with a menacing darkness squatted defiantly over Semiahmoo Bay. My yellow paper had been wrapped in plastic, as always, to protect it from an inevitable rain coast pelting – and subsequent melting – of Mr. Hoban’s words, but the particularly unwelcoming weather kept me inside until early afternoon …

At 2:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, on Russell Hoban’s naming day when he come 86, the dark clouds parted and the sun shone down. I headed down to the beach with my lovely wife, yellow paper in hand.

It was left on the best bench. Close to the water but distant from the action. A peaceful yet powerful spot. The wind was still whipping up the water. The gulls like that.

I am proud to once again represent for White Rock. I hear that, as of this year, I’m no longer the only Canadian contributor to SA4QE. This makes me proud as well. Here’s what’s written on my paper:

Reality is ungraspable. For convenience we use a limited-reality consensus in which work can be done, transport arranged, and essential services provided. The real reality is something else–only the strangeness of it can be taken in…

Russell Hoban
The Moment Under The Moment, Foreword

My best to all members of the Kraken Community …

And Thank you again, Russ, for the joyous mystery and the mysterious joy

Happy Birthday!

All best

Ra McGuire

Quantum physicist Richard Feynman is one of my heroes. This is from an interview I re-watched last night. I transcribed this bit so I wouldn’t forget it:

“You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt, and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything – and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here – and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit but if I can’t figure it out then I go into something else. But I don’t have to know an answer.

I don’t have to … I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things – by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose – which is the way it really is as far as I can tell … possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.”

~ Richard Feynman

From an interview with the BBC Horizon program; “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” 1981

Richard was also a helluva conga drum player.

“I think a lot of the problems we’ve been experiencing come from the fact that no one embraces the miracle and amazement of the present. So many people—steampunks, fundamentalists, hippies, neocons, anti-immigration advocates—feel like there was a better time to live in. They think the present is degraded, faded, and drab. That our world has lost some sort of “spark” or “basic value system” that, if you so much as skim history, you’ll find was never there. Even during the time of the Greeks, there were masses of people lamenting the passing of some sort of “golden age.” But I’d never go back and live in any other time than teetering on tomorrow; this is the greatest time to be alive.”

— Patton Oswalt (via The Office of Frank Chimero)