Inspiration (n). (Selected definitions) 1. An animating, quickening, or exalting action or influence. 5. Theol. A divine influence directly and immediately exerted on the mind or sould of man. 6. The drawing of air into the lungs; inhalation...

It used to be that I didn't write songs at all unless an inspiration came unbidden. It was the romantic view of creativity: the artist sits and waits, or spins up some drama, or drinks, or pontificates, or does pointless wild things, and the muse eventually arrives. This is how songs come to people -- isn't it? So the divine influence directly exerts itself upon the soul. That was the old way of thinking.

 RPM is making it seem another way. Even if I haven't written in five years or so, even if there is nothing particularly dramatic going on, there is a deadline here. I can't be waiting for the inspiration to swoop down majestically from a starry night sky. In addition, let's be real -- in those old days, what passed for 'the muse' should more properly and clearly have been called 'bad breakups', 'intoxication', or 'check out this really cool chord progression I found'. These influences were more earthly than divine, in retrospect.

So, not even sure that I have anything to say, I've got 35 minutes to say it. On February first, I had the germ of an idea and a start on one song. How to make an album out of that? Well, I've been listening incessantly to "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid," which I think is Bob Dylan's most underrated album. I've always loved it, because it really doesn't say too much. It's rambling, atmospheric, and sparse, and it's a soundtrack, nothing more or less-- the whole thing's constructed around a screenplay (A bad screenplay, I guess; I still haven't seen the movie). It occurred to me that maybe that simple, straightforward plan to back up a story musically is what accounts for its languid genius -- it's more of a meditation on a theme than a collection of pointed songs. Maybe I could do something like that -- take a topic, and come at it from a few different vantage points.

What topic? Well, the song I started with is about Annie Oakley. Great. There's a lot going on with that. There's Annie, and her weird childhood. There's the Cleveland hotelier who put her up in a shooting contest against the world's best trick shot, Frank Butler. And there's how she outshot Frank in that first contest, and how Frank fell in love with her, and how they both went to work for Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and everything that happened after that.

A great relationship. Storybook, in fact. Solid. The two of 'em make incredible American icons, everything we all wish we could be and do and have. But there's a flip side, of course. There are other paired American icons with less successful life histories, and the King and Queen of them, of course, are Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Theirs was a Mutual Assured Destruction of a relationship, high-drama, obsessive, and characterized by a self-fulfilling fatalism. But they're still folk heroes no less than Frank and Annie. What gives? Do these pairs have anything in common? Where can you draw parallels, and where were things just very different from the start? Why are they still so fascinating, and what do their stories say about the American myths of love?

Working with this structure, and this topic, has turned my songwriting world around. No more do I have to worry about what I want to say in a song. I've got somebody's story to tell - which gets the writing away from being a navel-gazing self-analysis (the type of song I'm oh, so tired of).

And the process? That changes, too. Instead of looking inward, you look outward. I've been surfing the web when I shouldn't, picking up more detail about Annie (did you know she did a stint teaching riflery to society ladies at Wentworth-by-the-Sea?) and Frank  (who doesn't even get his own Wikipedia page -- it links right to Annie's. That's not right.). And Bonnie and Clyde. Those last two become more oddly fascinating each time you go looking. For one thing, they were a little more, you know, alternative than I was aware of.  For another, did you know Bonnie Parker wrote poetry? I didn't either, but I sure am glad she did, because she gave me the lyric to her song herself.

So I'm recommending the structured, topic-focused, 'concept' working method to anyone having trouble writing. The process becomes less the way we imagine a Romantic poet or tortured playwright working, and more the way hardworking artists like stage designers, deadline writers, or graphic artists often work: intentionally constructing the environment you work in and think in to support your concept with every glance. You gather clippings and pictures and phrases and postcards and scraps of ephemera and pin them up around the room. You jot stuff on index cards and move them around. You noodle around with the guitar and notebook for hours until something happens.  You follow Google trails. Surround yourself with the sounds and ideas you want to work with. Only let in the influences that are working - block out those that are distracting.  Draw the air into the lungs; inhale.