Do you suppose The Beatles – who wrote and recorded 188 original songs between 1962 and 1970, an average of just over 20 a year – would have been so prolific if they’d spent their nine-year career just rehashing ‘Love Me Do’?
When most of today’s mainstream musicians put out a 12-track album one year then tour it round the world the next – so, 6 songs a year, averaged out – how were the Fab Four able to churn out masterpieces at more than triple the modern rate?
In his book Revolution In The Head, author Ian MacDonald offers a theory:
“They kept [their music] from becoming stale by continually inventing new methods and concepts: beginning and ending songs in the “wrong key”; employing modal, pentatonic, and Indian scales; incorporating studio effects and exotic instruments; and shuffling rhythms and idioms with a unique versatility.”
Picture Paul and John huddled together in a hotel room, or tour van, or the corner of room two at Abbey Road Studios. Could we try this in a different time signature? What if we just ripped off this avant-garde jazz record? Will hitting that blacksmith’s anvil with a hammer sound cool?
Questions, questions, questions, questions. That’s how the moptops from Liverpool kept their songwriting fresh. And us mere mortals can put that same idea to use on something even more meaningful.
Deep down, most of us feel stale in at least one area of our lives. Deep down, most of us would like to change that.
The trouble is the majority of people never take the time to consider what they can do to get out of their rut. Or they just never ask themselves about the rut in the first place. Sometimes, those things are all it takes.
Questions alone can’t solve problems. But they can be an incredibly powerful first step in the right direction:
Does my line of work still fulfil me?
Have I got a tight enough grip on my money?
Could I see my friends more?
Are the books I’m reading challenging enough?
Will today be the day I start that hobby?
Should I change my workout routine?
Is the place where I’m living the right one?
Am I taking my spouse for granted?
There are, of course, no right answers. Being right isn’t the point. Making the space to start a conversation with yourself is all that counts.
On one of the 188 songs from their timeless, peerless back catalogue, Paul McCartney and John Lennon sing about “doing the best that I can”.
Not “being perfect”, not “staying stagnant” – just aiming somewhere comfortably in between. The good stuff always happens in the gaps.
The song is called ‘Getting Better’.
Until next time,
Adam Kay
