Why Do I Write Songs?

By Mark Elliott

(Published in SONGBONES Magazine, Issue 02 (2019)

Why do I write songs? That’s not a question I asked myself as a young writer, and if I did, I did not expect or need an answer.

The first few songs I wrote arrived as echoes, reflections of everyday life, and those few emotions that managed to climb above the superficial surface of the teenage status quo. I wrote a song for my grandmother’s funeral. I wrote one after my history teacher’s car broke down, hauling a bunch of students back from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. And in quick succession, several angst-driven songs about darkness, futility, and other puberty-filled dramas I thought I should feel, but didn’t.

Those songs, though under-engineered and overwrought, came easy, came naturally. They stood as extensions of my being. The lyrics were my fingers and the melodies my pen, all spilling out onto reams of three-ring-binder paper. Writing happened without me having to try too hard and ask anyone who knows me; I am a guy who tries too hard. Once I caught a whiff of that first song, others followed like dogs to a dumpster. Or maybe because they have since haunted my life; like ghosts to a creaky old house that won’t let the dead rest.

I entered McLean High School in Northern Virginia, having traded my Star Wars lunch box (a year too late) for a jean-jacket backpack. I also carried my 1974 Martin D-35 in a sticker-laden case, along with a newly minted persona. I’m not bragging here, but possessing a persona, a look, some character about you as a freshman in high school is not the norm.

Writing songs as a fourteen-year-old allowed me to resist the urge to blend in, and to embrace the inevitability of standing out. I did not seek to stand out, but a young musician in school automatically stands out, especially guitar players. I think pianos, and maybe even saxophones, clarinets, and violas, might bring more steady money later in life. But guitars are cooler, at least in the ninth grade. And they make you stand out in the only way palatable to a teenager.

Kids who walk the hallways wearing brown leather-fringe jackets with large Walkman cassette players clipped like future flip phones to their belts and puffy headphones hugging their ears, also stand out. I added a little extra to that fashion statement by singing a half-cent under pitch to the latest John Denver record. Remember, it was 1981.

A kid who sits on the concrete steps of Smokers Court between classes, with the druggies and the upper classmen on the verge of playing hooky, stands out. When that same kid declines the cigarette and the blunt in the one space you can get away with both, he stands out. And when he opts instead, to flip his dreadnaught upside down on his lap like a desk, pulls out a pen and paper and begins writing, he stands out. Oh, and I forgot he’s also munching on a quarter of a Little Debbie snack cake (the rest of it going to the king and queen of the court–greasing the skids of acceptance.) Well, that kid most definitely stands out.

I did not know at the time, what a blue-collar musician was or that I would be one someday. But I connected early on with the notion of it being my purpose, who I was, and what I did. The thrill of being on stage and performing those songs for audiences came later, but never overtook the adrenaline rush of the pen pressing the first word into the page, and then pulling away after the last.

"I did not know at the time what a blue-collar musician was or that I would be one someday."

I began to understand the power of words after taking a year-long course in creative writing during my junior year. And once I realized I could catalog the ups and downs of my past, sweet spots and struggles of the present, and dreams of my future, writing became my drug of choice.

Over the years, writing has been no less expensive than cocaine, no less destructive than alcohol, and no less addictive than meth. So even though I only dabbled in those real drugs, with little consequence, writing would not spare me from an addict’s dysfunction.

Writing has made me an unstable spirit hidden behind a mostly capable body. It has enabled the worst financial decisions of my life and humbled me in ways that I never thought possible. Writing has cruelly ruined relationships, and in a mocking rebuke, allowed me to chronicle love’s demise eloquently in verse. It’s made me money, lost me money, and gained me notoriety, only to strip it away the moment I learned to enjoy it.

Writing has been a bitch, a bastard, a best friend, an annoying neighbor, a small barking dog, and an orgasm. Writing has been a half-bowl of rice and beans and a perfectly cooked medium-rare filet mignon. It has been endless amounts of off-brand cereal, Friday-night whippets from discount cans of spray whip cream, and the occasional lobster claw.

Writing has gotten me hired and fired by some of the biggest publishing houses in Nashville, and more than a few songs recorded. It has been both pitch-fork and blister while digging for fool’s gold.

Why do I write songs? I have only begun to ask that question in the last few years. I suppose the question itself is a bit of a sentinel marker. You don’t ask that question unless or until you lose the answer. With that in mind, I have produced answers that have been achingly accurate but never fulfilling.

I have written for money and some small degree of fame. I have written to show off, to leverage an invitation to the cool party, to cast off bouts of boredom, and to scare away the winter wolves of loneliness. I have written songs to bind and to sever. I have written to cast light and to shade, to truth-tell and much, much less.

Writing for me has been a binary, almost bi-polar existence. In the best of times, it has left me ecstatic and relatively prosperous, if only temporarily. It has provided purpose and left me feeling proud, admired, and peaceful.

At its worst, writing has left me distraught and relatively poor, possibly permanently. It has stripped me of a rudder and burst open the floodgates of self-doubt and mockery. And it’s rendered my soul unsettled, just when I thought its job was to soothe the same.

Sometimes songs are born of personal experience, but other times, I rob those feelings from others, selfishly feeding a content machine that at times spins at an uncontrollable speed and intensity.

Why do I write songs? Having to answer that question by myself is a lonely and near-impossible task in the best of situations. But sometimes a unique experience affords me a gift, an opportunity to have others answer that all-important question, transforming it into a passionate calling. That gift renews my artist soul, and I am inoculated, for a time anyway, against all my other answers. Words and melodies begin to flow again with the mother’s milk of artistic success: conviction. If you can’t do something with conviction, especially art, it seems a giant moot point.

This weekend gave me such a gift; conviction, purpose, and validation. I spent Saturday and Sunday as a staff songwriter for the Challenge America Program, a program pairing veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with professional songwriters on Amy Grant and Vince Gill’s farm south of Nashville.

I worked with two great vets who had courage for days, ready to tell part of their story. The process involved, for me anyway, talking less and listening more, catching stories instead of writing them. Helping someone put into words a story that can, and has been the difference between life and death, is a stark reminder of why art, songwriting, in particular, is essential. It is not about money, fame, ego, or anything related to myself at all, except for the fact that I can sniff out a story and write it down.

Wounds open and close when I write them down. Fears crescendo and subside when I write them down. The past relegates to the rearview where it belongs. Doors open, forward momentum kicks in, tears fall, and frowns lift into smiles. Apologies offered and accepted. Promises kept, friendships formed, while love fills the vacuum of hate, all because I, and many, many others, write them down. Why do I write songs? Who the hell knows? But the answers, so graciously given to me this weekend are the ones that will get me through tomorrow’s questions. 

– Mark Elliott is a published songwriter, author of blogs, essays, and a new full-length book The Sons Of Starmount.