Songwriting Without Boundaries (29 page)

Like
has a bad reputation these days. Its legitimate uses are either as a verb

I like the smell of evening.

Or to introduce simile.

Like the smell of evening …

Unfortunately, our culture has co-opted it to be used as an interruptor, causing me to write the following lyric:

LEAVE MY LIKE ALONE

Pat Pattison/Greg Barnhill

Like clouds that lace the open sky high above Nevada

Like dust behind the horses on the dry plains of Montana

Like thunder in the summer in the hills outside Atlanta

The pictures that I like come rolling by

But like, I don’t like like when it’s like used like it’s like nothing

Like I don’t like like when it’s like used instead of said

Like, “she’s like, no way,” “he’s like OK”

Man like that’s so like not my tone

Now won’t you just LEAVE MY LIKE ALONE

Yeah LEAVE MY LIKE ALONE

I like the smell at evening when the dew is on the grasses

I like the songs of ice cream trucks weaving past like laughter

And little children clutching quarters, like the memories they gather

I like to go there every time I close my eyes

So like, I don’t like like when it’s like used like it’s like nothing

Like I don’t like like when it’s like used instead of said

Like, “she’s like, no way,” “he’s like OK”

Man like that’s so like not my tone

Now won’t you just LEAVE MY LIKE ALONE

Like somewhere in the valley girls abandon their vocabularies

Total conversations made of only so and like

And it’s so hard to distinguish

When you murder the king’s English

So like I wrote this little song, I thought I’d try because

You see, I don’t like like when it’s like used like it’s like nothing

Like I don’t like like when it’s like used instead of said

Like, “she’s like, no way,” “he’s like OK”

Man like that’s so like not my tone

Now won’t you just LEAVE MY LIKE ALONE

Please just LEAVE MY LIKE ALONE

*Find the complete song at patpattison.com under “patsongs.”

Today you’ll be working with simile. You’ll be asked to find three similes for each term, plus a description explaining the connections. Like this:

Thirst
is like a guest who won’t go away.

You can bear it for a while, but the longer you wait, the more uncomfortable you feel, until you finally have to head for the bathroom and close the door.

Thirst
is like a buffalo hunter on the dry plains of Montana.

It stalks everywhere, looking for prey to bring down, peering through tumbleweed at figures moving in the distance toward the waterhole. If it has its way it’ll stop them cold before they can get there.

Being thirsty
is like being the parent of a teenage daughter.

Always wanting another little drop of information and attention, in the dry landscape of texting and sleepovers, after the waterfall of affection from childhood has long since turned to a trickle.

Your turn. Find three similes for each of the following terms. Then write a short elaboration on each one.

Trust
is like:

1. Trust is like a good night’s sleep. It allows your mind to rest, and you can rely on it.
—CHARLIE WORSHAM

2. Trust is like a patchwork quilt, made from swatches and squares of people and experiences. It is many colors, many patterns, and frayed at the edges. Over the years it lies threadbare, but still provides warmth and comfort in the cold of life.
—ANDREA STOLPE

3. Trust is like a roof. You don’t really notice it until it’s gone.
—MO McMORROW

Now you try. What is trust like?

A bad joke is like:

1. A bad joke is like a penny you drop that falls through an open grate on the sidewalk. For the joke teller, it is more an embarrassment than a true loss.
—CHARLIE WORSHAM

2. A bad joke is like a fart in an elevator. You are forced to politely stand there and sniff it in until the door opens.
—CHANELLE DAVIS

3. A bad joke is like spilled milk, spreading over the tablecloth of conversation, drowning the napkins. You try mopping up the white and milky liquid, but it has already started to seep into the wood of the table, smelling more and more sour.
—SUSAN CATTANEO

Now you try. What is a bad joke like?

Divorce is like:

1. Divorce is like a fighter pilot’s ejector seat. When the marriage is going down in flames, press the button for a second chance.
—CHANELLE DAVIS

2. Divorce is like a bushfire. Without it some trees don’t seed.
—MO McMORROW

3. Divorce is like a car crash: Anger like twisted metal, the ambulance comes too late to save anyone, the pavement is strewn with old memories, the same arguments like the same turn in the road that you always take too fast.
—SUSAN CATTANEO

Your turn. What is divorce like?

A waterfall is like:

1. A waterfall is like a bridal veil, white and flowing down the smooth back of the rocks.
—CHANELLE DAVIS

2. A waterfall is like hair, falling in luscious strands off the rocky head of the cliff, made gold in the sunlight, smooth until it hits the bottom in a froth of curls, the whitewater rafts have oars that comb through the currents.
—SUSAN CATTANEO

3. A waterfall is like a construction worker. Pounding and jackhammering the stone face of the mountain, gallons of raw strength pour over the cliff.
—ANDREA STOLPE

Your turn. What is a waterfall like?

Hope is like:

1. Hope is like a teddy bear, comforting to hold onto, squeezing it tightly when you’re afraid, and helping you rest your head to sleep at night.
—KRISTIN CIFELLI

2. Hope is like spandex, stretching across the flab of life. The wider the challenge, the thinner it becomes, but it will take more than a pint of melted dreams to split the seams of this stargazer.
—ANDREA STOLPE

3. Hope is like a faithful dog. It guards your dreams and walks two paces in front until you get to your destination.
—CHANELLE DAVIS

Your turn. What is hope like?

Wow! Congratulations! You’ve finished the metaphor challenge and should be seeing the world with new vision, or at least, I hope so. You are well-prepared for the third challenge, which entails going deeper into metaphor and learning to extend and manipulate it.

Take a little time off, if you’d like. You’ve earned it. Let these ways of looking seep into your bloodstream. Don’t be gone too long, though. The next challenge is fun and will keep you moving forward. You will cross boundaries you may not have seen before.

CHALLENGE #3

OBJECT WRITING
WITH METAPHOR

I would hurl words into this darkness and
wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded,
no matter how faintly, I would send other words
to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense
of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.

—RICHARD WRIGHT,
AMERICAN HUNGER

This challenge is an extension and continuation of the metaphor challenge. You’ve accomplished quite a bit so far, writing from your senses and learning to use your images—the stuff of your senses—to be seen as something more: William Faulkner’s crowded cans of sardines on the country store shelf become the crowd of people in the general store watching the trial of Abner Snopes, accused of burning a barn.

Now for the next step.

What quality does a can of sardines have? Crowded. What else is crowded? The shelf, crowded with crowded things. The courtroom, crowded with the townsfolk.

The courtroom = can of sardines

In what respect?

They’re both crowded.

So now I get to use nouns, verbs, and adjectives that really belong with, say,
can of sardines
and apply them to
the courtroom
.

The courtroom felt packed in oil

The courtroom felt dead and gray

The courtroom, layered in townsfolk

The oily courtroom

Something fishy …

Faulkner chose to put cans of sardines on the shelf for a reason: It was ultimately a metaphor for Abner’s quest to break free of any kind of restriction. Pretty cool.

Essentially, to find a metaphor you find some quality that two separate ideas share in common. The best way is to ask these two questions:

1. What interesting quality does my idea have?

2. What else has that quality?

Answering the second question usually releases a flood of possible metaphors.

In this fourteen-day challenge you’re going to exercise your ability to extend metaphors—to find more and more common links between the two ideas of the metaphor (the courtroom = can of sardines), and to be able to transpose the qualities of one onto the other: to talk about the courtroom in fishy, oily, packed language.

You’ll be asked to respond each day with object writing that stays deep in the senses, but the object writing in this section, unlike the writing you’ve done up to this point, can be focused on a more unified narrative thread.

For the first seven days, I’ll supply the
linking qualities
—the qualities that will serve as links to a new idea, which I’ll call the
target idea
. Starting on day eight, you’ll be asked to find your own linking qualities, from which you’ll find your
target idea
(what else has that quality?). You’ll be asked each day to do ten-minute pieces of object writing for each pairing.

Fear not. As usual, each day will include two example responses from other writers, including poets, songwriters, and prose writers.Go get ’em.

DAY #1

LINKING QUALITIES
TO TARGET IDEAS

Prompt: Snowstorm

You see a
snowstorm
and wonder what it could be a metaphor for. Usually, you see something about it—a
quality—
that reminds you of something else, like how the flakes float to the ground. Your mind makes the leap to other things that float to the ground, and you might think of autumn leaves. You start to think of how snowstorms are like falling leaves, or how falling leaves are like snowstorms. Wow, you think, a blizzard of leaves, or, the sky shedding snow. You can think of either one in terms of the other. And what made it possible was linking from snowstorm, through its quality,
floating to the ground,
to leaves. That’s usually how it happens.

But, rather than waiting for inspiration and for those “aha” moments to occur, you can make a habit of seeing one thing through the lens of something else; it can become a way of looking at the world. That’s what writers do—see the world on several levels. They’re always combing snowstorms and crashing waves for metaphors.

You start by asking: What interesting qualities does
snowstorm
have? Here are a few:

Cold

Covering the ground

Hot cider by the fireplace