The following interview is reprinted, with kind permission by the author, from the book SONGWRITERS ON SONGWRITING (expanded edition) by Paul Zollo, published by Da Capo Press, New York. Further information about this outstanding collection of interviews can be found on Paul Zollo's website (link opens in new window).

Van Dyke Parks

Hollywood, California 1989

Los Angeles, California 1996

You take Western, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Hollywood, a street replete with darkness and dereliction and all that is crass and cold about modern times, and you turn off it into a little paradise: a quaint and quiet lane that seems somehow saved over from a previous century.

It's an appropriate place for the songwriter Van Dyke Parks to live, a man who both in his art and his life hearkens back to times gone by. Since the start of his career, he has followed his especially distinctive muse into musical worlds few writers ever venture near, courageously staying true to the music that moves him, regardless of current trends. He writes fully developed song cycles backed not by drums, guitars or synthesizers but by full orchestras. He steers clear of the modern and mechanical to build songs that are sturdy and that will last: "I don't think a song should fall apart," he says, "like a cheap watch on the street." His songs haven't fallen apart over the years, neither the ones he wrote with Brian Wilson for the Beach Boys, nor the ones from his own albums. These include his legendary debut, Song Cycle , (released in 1968 with an opening cut, "Vine Street," written and arranged by his friend, Randy Newman), the delightful musical Americana of Jump (released in 1985), based on the tales of Brer Rabbit, a magical world unto itself of authentic dialect set to soaring melodies accompanied by banjos, fiddles and full orchestra, and the magical Orange Crate Art , with vocals by Brian Wilson, in 1995. "Van Dyke is ahead of his time," Randy Newman told me, and it's true: Parks is a songwriter able to ponder the future without forgetting or obscuring the past. When I first spoke to him in 1989, he had just put the finishing touches on Tokyo Rose , an orchestral scrutiny of America's evolving relationship with Japan. Setting the stage without words like the great cinematographers of the silent era, he allows the orchestra to tell the whole story in the opening song. It's an arrangement of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" gradually infiltrated by an Oriental influence as Japanese drums, a koto, and the pentatonic scale overtake the patriotic melody.

He was born in 1943 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, raised in Lake Charles, Lousiana and attended the Columbus Boychoir School in Princeton, New Jersey. As a child actor he appeared in many New York TV shows and played Andrew Bonino on the 1953 series "Bonino." After graduating from Carnegie Tech, he moved to Los Angeles and met producer Terry Melcher, who not only hired him to play piano for many recording sessions, but also introduced him to another young genius, Brian Wilson.

Brian was at work on the landmark Pet Sounds when he met Van Dyke, and they started writing songs together for the doomed Smile album, which never saw the light of day. Parks' penchant for lyrical abstraction bothered the other Beach Boys, who apparently felt their songs should focus only on sand, surf, and California girls. Even with their resistance, Brian and Van Dyke wrote great songs together, most notably "Heroes and Villains" and "Surf's Up."

In 1995 Mr. Parks reunited with his old friend Brian Wilson to make a new masterpiece ideal for the conclusion of this century, Orange Crate Art. Unlike their previous collaborations, however, Van Dyke did all the writing here, words and music, and Brian was enlisted as lead vocalist. Orange Crate Art is pure, undiluted Parks music -- bringing us to a musical world mostly forgotten and unexplored by today's songwriters. It's a world of sweet, lush melodies, of lyrics with real rhymes, of orchestral glory and the timeless beauty of human voices in real harmony. Evoking romantic visions of the California of the past which is preserved forever in the pastoral imagery of actual orange crate art, in these songs one can almost breathe in the fragrance of the citrus groves and orchards that once flourished in the valley before giving way to endless freeway and what he refers to as "the suburban nightmare." It's an album that translates the original dream into songs as sweet as those oranges of the past must have tasted. We met at Van Dyke's home for our second interview in 1996 to discuss this extraordinary album. With his Scottish terrier at our feet and a stubborn crow singing from above, we sat in the shade of ancient trees and talked about the worlds one can make out of words and music: "You're creating a world that you are subject to," he said softly. "It's transcendental, and beyond possession."

His priorities are perhaps most clearly revealed by a tale he told concerning his daughter, Elizabeth, who was nine at the time. When she confessed to him, in tears, that she wanted to love all of his songs but didn't like a song on Tokyo Rose , he obliged her and removed it from the record. It was the album's solitary rock-tinged song, the one the record company had designated to be both the single and the video.

"Do what you do and do it well, and don't be doing what somebody else is doing," he said, collecting his half-smoked cigarettes in his hand as if to mark the time. "It is not natural to me to be successful doing what somebody else is doing."

Do you remember writing your first song?

My first song was called "Brown Dog." And it went, "Brown dog, brown dog, amen, amen."

Sounds religious.

Yes, I was on a very religious trip then. I can't calculate how old I was. It's not a remarkable effort. But it's from, I think, a four-year-old boy.

I did write it down. But it discouraged me, "Brown Dog" did.

Why?

Because there wasn't enough exposition and a whole bunch of stuff that makes a song interesting. And I must say, I didn't have the knack and I still don't. I work for everything I do. Very hard. I can only refer to my own private process because I don't know anybody else's private process. And I wouldn't dare to ask, simply because I'm in a more vulnerable position on this issue than you are [laughs] 'cause I haven't been asking what you did unto others. [Laughs]

Songs have a tremendous closeness to the soul. The Psalms was my first all-time favorite in the Bible. David's psalms. I've always venerated a timeless, higher power. I always had the idea that I was under God, and that's the way I try to live, so I pay attention to things like the psalms.

I have no idea what's going on with this heavy metal stuff. I can't understand the theater of alienation. I don't think it should be done in song or reinforced musically. I think that it's called obscenity where I come from. I don't get it. I don't get the conveyance of hostility.

When I write a song, I do it for a purpose. Usually. Many melodies spring from a shower. And it's easy to hum them, but then something must be done. You must get out of the shower and get to the table. You have to get your clothes on and maybe make a bed. Then you must get to the piano with your cup of coffee or whatever you do , and you have to start. You have to write it down and capture the melody. That's how I work. I capture a melody.

And melodies generally come to you when you're not thinking about them?

Yes. When you're thinking of other things, when you're thinking of cabbages and kings and anything else but application or certainly, to me, commerce.

I love nineteenth century songs so much. Because I love the melodies of the pre-industry. I do want to be part of this century though. And I feel there should be in songwriting -- if it's on a record, and it has been funded -- it should convey things. And what it should convey, in my case, is what is on the universal mind. So that's what I try to do. I try to make them understandable. Do your songs always spring from an initial melody? Yes. I always hang the words on a melody. You know the old joke, which comes first, the music or the words? The answer is the phone call. [Laughs] That's an old Brill Building saying. But for me, the music and the words usually come before the phone call.

The melody is always developed without any other purpose. To realize a good melody . . . that is what is happening in REM, in rapid eye movement. That is what happens in the dream escape. That is the treasured moment when you don't have to think of anything. And every man would want to find the grace and the wisdom and the luck to have those moments every day.

For years you have written amazing, interesting melodies. What do you look for in a melody?

Music has to appear before me. Once it does, I try to find something in the melody that suggests a very specific place. An attitude, a feeling. No matter how ugly that feeling might seem. I do what's at hand. I met William Saroyan once, the author, in New York after a play that I was in. And I said to him, "How do you get it done?" And he said, "I sit down every morning; I write `The dog runs.' If it takes me ten days doing that, I write, `Perhaps the dog runs fast.' " I stay on the clock. I don't get my knickers twisted if I don't get a certain amount of songwriting done. Because composure is what it's all about. But you must go there. You must make a habit of the luxury and the sanctuary that songwriting provides. You're creating a world that you're subject to. Or at least you're responding to a world that you're subject to. It's transcendental. It's beyond possession, it really is. What do you feel makes a melody great? A melody is first an exposition. It goes somewhere from somewhere. A melody takes us through time. A good melody indicates its harmonic development. The melodies that I work on are highly derivative. This is the way I work. I realize that I have heard something before. But I never know exactly where. But I think a good melody can be evocative. It can remind you of some place that you've been. And if a melody jars memory, I think it serves a great purpose. I use melodies as evocative tools. Tools which jar memory, so that a feeling of familiarity and safety is created. So that, perhaps objectionable or revolutionary thoughts, or unsettling thoughts, can be accommodated. The melody, to me, should be comforting. Or easily digested. Invitational. So that the thought may be accommodated. That's what I try to do.

Do you invent a melody note by note, or do you have the sense of a whole tune popping into your head?

It pops.

Does that happen a lot, or only when you're working?

That is when I'm not working. I do all of the grunt work when I'm working. Work is the grunt stuff. I do everything but what is important when I'm working. I work on the first violin. I've been working on setting a poem by Lord Kitchener. And I've been working on only one phrase for a long time. It's a matter of eight syllables. To me, songwriting is like a hydra. You slay one beast and you end up with two more. And its a defiance, and you have to stay on it until you get yourself out of the problem. You're not satisfied until you've tied off the last suture. So I'm working on it now.

What do you think the source of those melodies that come to you is?

All of the melodies I lay some proprietary claim to have come from the Church. They come from plainsong, or from low or high hymns. They just come out of that experience. And I think of that the way I think about folk music. I think they come from your earliest recollections. I think you get them on the edge of your experience. That's where I get mine. Songwriting is all about memory. I think that that's what melody is all about. To me, it's the aesthetic equivalent of the Big Bang. This is where you find out where your origins are, and you find out why you want to go where it is that you are going. I think it's the greatest process of discovery. And those melodies come from a place that are beyond conscious ability. They expand and lengthen your experience, and take you beyond your time and place.

Recently the New York Times ran an article about what they called "the death of the standard." And their definition of what makes a standard is a great melody.

I think the melodies are what distinguish standards. But I think that there's a general confusion about what lyrics should do in a standard. I think people expect more from a song emotionally than they used to. Songs have to have a higher emotional impact, I think.

I agree. Yet when people discuss standards, many contend that those lyrics were superior to lyrics that came later.

But you listen to the old songs of a generation or more ago preceding us, and it seems to me -- I'm not sure if this is my own take on it or if this is a fact -- the lyrics are almost soporific, almost sleep-inducing. Compared to the lyrics that I hear today. Which are more along the lines of "Switchblades of Love," things of that sort. They have more of a bite to them. More violence. Relationships are more violent. And songs from the golden age of standards, the evergreens that came out during the '3Os and '4Os and even the '5Os were more of a retreat, a comfort zone. Escapist by nature. Music I hear today is not so escapist.

Is this an improvement?

I don't know. I don't know what songs are supposed to do. [Laughs] I have fewer and fewer opinions. As I grow, I have fewer opinions. I have heightened sensibilities about it. I will say that to me, what's missing musically is that popular songs of our age are bereft, musically. They have very diminished musical accomplishment. In comparison to the songs of the craftsmen who were milling this stuff out in the lettuce days of the Brill Building. I think that the New York Times article is correct in its assumptions about that. That the singer-songwriter, the personalities who have brought their own songs to the marketplace, have inundated the market with some inferior goods. That's the way I feel about it. Personality has much more to do with the selling of the song and musicality much less. Presentation is everything and substance is wanting. That's the way I feel about it.

You're speaking only about the music?

Yes. I don't have any opinion about lyrics. Because, to me, lyrics are no-man's land. Lyrics, to me, are sacrosanct. I have no complaints with anyone's lyrics.

One of the changes in songwriting is that so many of today's songwriters write on guitar instead of piano, thus greatly changing the harmonic and melodic structures of songs.

I've often wished I could still play guitar. The guitar produces special results. You know that. If it's used as a reference in songwriting, it produces much different results than songs conjured at a piano. You can just feel it. And I like them both. But I do miss the participation of the piano in today's music. You can feel that there is an absence of pianists as singer-songwriters. So in that way I step into the arena in a field of forfeit. As a pianist, a songwriter who writes at the piano.

I feel that on [Orange Crate Art] the songs are pianistic in nature. They are more or less piano exercises that happen to have words as an afterthought. Most of them.

Do you conceive of the melodies apart from the piano, as pure melody?

Absolutely. Then I go through an elaborate intermediary period where I'm working at the piano to bring the melody forth. Sometimes I'll spend a couple of months ruminating about it. In a certain key, or at a certain tempo. Then I'll lose that entire effort. I wrote "Orange Crate Art" in E flat and sing it in G. I like it there.

Do you feel each key has its own individual character?

Certainly on piano, keys have a personality and an atmosphere of their own. Away from the ephemera that all these great composers have felt about keys. The attitudes of keys, the synesthetic relationships of keys that composers like Beethoven or Mozart or Tchaikovsky, all have somehow without talking about it, have all agreed on the synesthetic relationships of these keys.

When you are thinking of a melody, do you choose a particular key for its nature?

Yes. Something does feel very romantic to me and introspective in a way about keys that have a lot of black notes. There's something tremendously exotic about G flat or F sharp. It's not bright. I get a visual impression of those keys. I think everybody does, whether they know it or not.

It seems to me that the majority of your songs are in major keys as opposed to minor.

Yes. That's true.

Why do you think that is?

I don't know. I was reading in the New York Times about the "Jewish song." Cole Porter wanted to write the Jewish song in a minor key. What was it, "I Love Paris?" He always wanted to write the Jewish song. Turns out the American song was being written by a lot of recent immigrants to the United States, defining the American culture. A lot of them happened to be Jewish, and Cole Porter looked at the gifts of people like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin with an obvious envy. He didn't understand how it came so easily to all these people, to define America with their songs. A lot of them were in minor keys.

It's a funny thing, isn't it? How people think minor [key] songs are somehow more contemplative than major [key] songs.

Sting said he felt it's easier to write a pretty melody in a minor key.

Well, it is, yeah. Been a long time since I wrote one in a minor key. I wrote "San Francisco" in a minor key. That was written in E minor.

That one has a great rhythm.

That was a fun rhythm. It went from a shuffle feel to straight eighths. The song is very complex, actually.

Songwriting isn't something I do to express myself. I don't express myself. I express a point of view. But to me, songwriting is a discipline. It's no more familiar to me than the crossword puzzle, which I also do. It's an exercise. Sometimes I think it's an exercise in futility, considering the small popularity of the work that I've done. It's a subsistence. An avocation. But I love songwriting. It's also the most personal thing I do.

Isn't that contradiction? How can it be like a crossword puzzle and the most personal thing you do?

But it is, because crossword puzzles are very highly personal.

But the difference is that there's only one right way to complete a crossword puzzle, as opposed to writing a song.

Yes, that's right. But in any song, there is a central truth. And you either find it, or you allude to it. At best. But a successful song, there is something clairvoyant about it, and I had tried to find that. So it is a highly personal thing. But it also has a great deal of figuring to it. The point of inspiration is always a faint memory by the time the song is completed. There's so much to do. Just to rope it in. To get it into a form of memory, either paper -- in my case I write them down -- or tape.

I guess the highest praise for the form is that there is no one correct answer. I guess that's a high form of praise. That's probably why I like it. I have never learned a repeatable approach pattern to songwriting. There's no right way of writing songs. Isn't that funny?

Yes. And not one songwriter I've spoken to in all these years can offer a singular approach.

You've been with so many people in interviews, and I've read them and enjoyed the ones I've read. So much. And yet, nothing is revealed. Everything is revealed, yet nothing is revealed. What is transferable in the interviews with songwriters, what I get from them, is this sense of courage, of derring-do. This is transferable. This is infectious. I love that. That's highly contagious. And confirmational. It's as helpful as belonging to some religious sect, to me. Hearing someone say, "Amen."

But beyond that, I don't know what the hell any of these people are doing, or how they're doing it. I don't understand it. I don't know how Elton John can get these lyrics from Taupin and write a song in fifteen minutes. I don't understand it.

But he might say the same thing about you, that he doesn't understand how Van Dyke could write a whole lyric to a finished melody, which many people think is much more difficult than writing a melody to a lyric. And a lyric with inner rhymes and a perfect structure.

Lyrics are hard. I get the impression, when I'm working on a lyric, for example, because I love internal rhymes and a highly crafted lyric, what some people think of as highly pretentious or overly managed words. At one point, in our songwriting history, this was a prerequisite for a good song. A highly crafted, a heavy internal rhyme scheme. Those things are thought of as elaborate and somehow out of step.

And yet, I think, people do respond to that kind of structure when they get to hear it.

They should be aware of it. I'm comforted by such craft. I love it. But there is a time when instinct is the higher teacher. There's a time when internal rhymes -- enough of them. There's enough of it. It's like you get to a point of what they say in New Orleans is 'obzakee' --one too many spices in a dish. There gets to be a point when you don't want to have so much internal rhymes. I remember watching Robert Altman when he was doing Popeye . With a camera on a boat. And a fast moving sky filled with clouds. Shooting an object on another boat. There were no fixed points, you see. I feel very much like I'm at sea when I'm working on lyrics. Melodies are easy to me. But lyrics are not. Lyrics are very difficult. There are no knowns to me. The lyric is a total leap of faith. And a highly abstract process. Melodies are easy in comparison.

Though the process might be abstract, the lyrics themselves are far from abstract, especially as compared to earlier work such as Song Cycle .

Yes, those days of free association in lyrics are over for me.

Was there a reason you made that shift?

Yeah. When I looked at the sales report from the songs I wrote, I decided I would not do that again. So I retired from that, but I still think it's a valid idiom. Certainly one for James Joyce, who influenced my decision to enter that in a poetical attempt. But, you know, I'm basically where I was then. I was too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a flower child. And basically, I still have this iconoclastic and highly individual approach to songwriting. And I enjoy it very much. It's an honor, and I'm happy to do it. Even without my abstractionist ideals of my youth. I enjoy songwriting and I think it's so dynamic a field that I hope to continue it till I die. I like the songs I last did the best. I think my work improved. The songs are, I think, more accessible than ever before, which is important.

I agree that these songs on Orange Crate Art are wonderful, as are the orchestrations, and the sound of Brian Wilson singing them. It's a nourishing thing to hear in this day and age.

Well , I hope so. It was important on personal terms. To be able to work on songs for Brian Wilson, with the power of his reputation and his body of work behind him. Those were all impressive precedents. As I worked on the record, I thought about his reputation and trying to protect it and nurture it, as I was trying to, of course, build my own by doing it. But it started out to be impossible to do the record, and I'm surprised we got it done.

I brought a lot of precious articles of thought to bear in this project, so I hope it reveals something of the timeless pleasures this sense of place has brought me. That's what the record was built for. It was highly responsive to the art that depicted California.

Was this an idea you had for a while?

I had no idea, before I began the record, what the record was about. And I never do. I never have an idea. Somebody came up with the expression, "concept record." And I thought that was an amusing description. I had no concept of any record that I've ever done. I just do the record. I just go from one song to the next, and follow the hope that I will complete the requirements of the job, which is now ten songs. And I just hope that I get it finished. That becomes the obsession. Then there does come a certain point when you realize you are finished. And at that point, if you have your act together, you claim territory for some concept. And I've never had that faculty for leadership. I don't know what I'm doing. I never do when I'm recording. And if you can find an executive producer or a finance department somewhere who will trust that process, I think sometimes you come up with something tremendously individual and valuable. If you're fortunate enough to find that degree of trust, I think you can find areas of exploration that matter.

How do you make the leap from not being able to escape a subject, to being able to effectively translate it into song? How, for example, did you create "White Chrysanthemum" from Tokyo Rose ?

It starts with plainsong. Plainsong, that most ancient of Druid musical forces. The nice thing about plainsong is that you can put any number of notes onto it. It stays on one chord. I stayed on one chord and said, "Somewhat overwhelmed by the dimension of her lovely breast" and on the word "breast" I changed the chord. And I had to make that make sense so I said, "The rector turns his face from Mother Nature back to God." I wanted to make the priest human, so he's paying attention to Mother Nature's breast, [laughs] and then I reminded myself that I wanted to do something serious so I used the word "God." And then I decided he would say something, and that was, "Therefore in the valley of the shadow we are truly, truly blessed," that rhymed --"now we return our brother to the sod."

Okay, so that all rhymed. I took that as a successful effort, probably taking me five days of rigorous work to repeat that on the next couplet where it gets harder.

So it's a puzzle that you have to solve?

Yes. My week goes better if I do the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. I love puzzles.

So I did the funeral scene. I got the man in the ground. That's why I say it's my most favorite song; it's the most successful song on this album. Because it took effort.

When working on songs, what tools do you use?

I've got music paper which has eleven lines at the top. I write the melody, the chords, and I write the words on the third line. After I do a great deal of writing, I go to the computer and refine what it is I'm trying to do. But the pen is mightiest. Actually I work with a mechanical pencil at all times. Not satisfied with the eraser situation in that kind of thing, but it's the best. I keep a gum eraser next to me. These are survival mechanisms I have an easel. I have my computer to the right of the piano.

You've described detailed approaches to crafting a song, using a great deal of design and conscious thought. Are the best songs written this way?

Absolutely. Song is craftsmanship. You look at Randy Newman and you see what a craftsman is. The key is a great craftsman.

Randy told us that he sits at the piano every day and works. Is this what you do?

Oh, absolutely. I didn't know that. As a matter of fact, I think he's lying. But I'm telling the truth. I work hard for what I do. And I don't think anyone holds a candle to me in terms of effort.

So songwriting for you is a daily activity?

There are months that go by that I don't write songs. I go out and take care of the garden; I take care of the realities. I get the house re-roofed and painted and stuff. Pick the kid up from school -- both kids, if I'm lucky. And in the meantime I stay plastered to the news.

So to connect with those realities beyond everyday life you stay aware of this reality.

Yes. I find something that moves me. Kinky Friedman said, "Find what you like and let it kill you." [Laughs]

I have a small output of music. My best work, and least conspicuous, has been in the service of other records. But I'm inescapably interested in songwriting and about every five years I get interested in doing that. And I work very hard at it.

I can't afford to write songs all year. I have to do jobs. If the birds go up in the air for PBS, there are some flutes going up with them. Those projects are not temblors, as they say in the earthquake business. They won't shake the world. But those projects teach me something, and it influences the way I think when I write tunes. So I stay in a musical environment at all times.

What was it like the first time you and Brian Wilson tried working together back in the sixties?

He was very fair. He gave me a five thousand dollar check so that I could buy a car. He gave me half of the writer's royalties. He got me off of a motorcycle and into a Volvo without a contract. I call that pretty decent. I'm sure it was a pleasure working for him, but that's less important.

But what the two of you came up with was incredible. A song like "Heroes and Villains" --

Well, it was a start. It was stopped in its tracks. Not by sibling rivalry, but there was a very difficult time. The Beach Boys were in court for about eighteen million dollars at the time and an open admission that Capitol Records had been completely dishonest with them. It was a great scandal, and the pressure from that produced some good music [laughs, and then softly] but some not so good. . . .

Would Brian give you a finished melody to write words to?

He did the melodies. The melody to "Heroes and Villains" -- every note has a sound syllable to it. It sounded like a Marty Robbins tune, like a ballad, so I thought it would be a good idea to have it: "I've been in this town so long that back in the city I've been taken for gone and unknown for a long time / Fell in love years ago with an innocent girl from the Spanish and Indian home of the heroes and villains." All those words. I was working like a son of a bitch. And then he would say, "That's good." And then he would say, "Let's call it `Heroes and Villains,' " and I would say, "That's grand. Let's do." [Laughs]

Songwriting is a racket and we know that and we wish it weren't. I think you know that.

It seems it can be a racket or not, depending on how you play it.

The songs that come to the public attention are subject to the same processes that bring songs that shouldn't come to the public attention. But, hey -- bright lights, big city. This is nice here. I have enough room to write.

But if you wanted to play the game, you could. Yet you do your own work, completely different from what is making it in the marketplace, and let the world deal with it.

I'm not trying to do anything novel. I'm trying to do what good songs have forever done. Songs should outlive their writers. They should stand the test of time. Some songs you hear the first time, and you know they haven't stood that test.

I like to come back to songwriting because it is, relatively speaking, an unobstructed window into the soul. It's a very nice escape, too.

Now that I'm getting older, I want to be known for having written. That really matters to me. I want my children, if they find a trunk somewhere that isn't too mildewed, to think I was a real swell guy. On top of it in a way. [Softly] I want to look good to my family.

Did you begin writing the songs for Orange Crate Art with the thought of Brian Wilson doing the singing, or did that idea come later?

It was between jobs. I wanted to do a record because I had nothing else to do. So I went to Lenny [Waronker] and played him the song "Orange Crate Art" and he liked it. And then I went out to Brian and asked him to do it, and we went into the studio and got that one done, and I had no idea what I wanted to do next.

Did he like the song when he heard it?

He liked it okay. This is a guy who wrote... [Pause] "God Only Knows" what he wrote. [Laughter] Everything.

I didn't expect to get any flattery from him. And I worked in the studio for two and a half hours, and he was very nervous, and so was I, and we got it done in two and a half hours. And then Lenny liked the result, so we went on. But in each case it was very difficult to tell what Brian's real take on it was. I think it was more or less of a consolation for him to do the album. It was a labor of love for him. He didn't commit the songs to memory. We went sentence by sentence, and doubled each sentence. You miss a lot of proprietary values in a vocal performance when you do it that way.

Did you consider doing the singing yourself originally?

Yes, I did. When I wrote it. But then I thought of this word "orange." You know, it's just a fascinating word, for obvious reasons. And I thought Brian should sing that word.

Because of the California implications?

Yeah. I thought he would really put the right stamp on it.

So after the first song, you decided to have Brian sing all the rest?

No, I didn't think so. I think Lenny Waronker thought that I should do that. We went on to "Sail Away." We did the songs in the order that you hear them.

You had mentioned in another article that Brian insisted on bringing in two bowls filled with ice water to dunk your heads into, which you did. And you said, "One can't deny the invigorating effects of your head in a bowl of ice water."

[Laughter]

Brian did one thing during the album that totally astounded me. He loves Diet Coke, and when I tossed him one, he caught it behind his back and popped the top. It was incredible. If I was the president of Coca-Cola, I would want that on film. [Laughter]

Harry Nilsson could do things like that. Harry once sunk a basket at the Forum from half-court. Just to remind you who was in charge. [Laughter] It was beyond belief. My God.

So I'm happy with the record. And I think it's the most distinct work I've managed in a thirty year career in avocational record production. But, it to me was important for one reason: it renewed my relationship with Brian Wilson. It helped bring new events to the relationship and the promise of working again. And that's why I did it. So I achieved my objective. Everything but sales.

Do you ever feel limited by the song form?

Limitation creates form. That's something that Krishnamurti said. It's always nice to think about when you're feeling limited.

In your work, you take traditional forms and use them in new, unlimited ways.

I do believe in gilding the lily. This is an industry in which you have to provide every move for demonstration of a song. You're not allowed to be poor and write songs. You must be wealthy. If you have a synthesizer, you're a composer. I mean, give me a break.

In light of that, is composing fun for you? Is creating and solving these puzzles enjoyable?

Yeah. It's a great privilege. I fight for it. I haven't been successful commercially. Every record is produced on a wing and a prayer. That doesn't change my sense of abandonment in trusting that it will develop well. If I just use my known gifts and work as hard as I can, something's gonna end up on a record that will be an entertainment.

I won't ask the question of you, but the question begs: Can anybody really be happy with work? If your work is in progress, in a way, I think you can be satisfied with the results, because they suggest a development.

I think too much attention is placed on what is seen. A song is a suggestion of the reality that lies beyond. The reality that makes these songs, to me, important is that they refer to a great issue. I think I've thrown some pretty good stuff up against the wall, and I think it should stick. I mean, I believe that.

Few people stretch the boundaries of what songs can do. Your work shows us that there is a world of content that hasn't even been touched yet in songs. Do you feel that?

Yes, I believe that. That songs could take on more. But I'm not trying to develop the song form. I'm trying to suggest in the geometry of the song the ideas that must be expressed. I give that room. This is not a commercial consideration, I'm sorry to say. And for that reason, these songs have a tendency to last.

Songwriting is a matter of self-discovery. I just don't want to have to wade through that dirt to get to that flower.

I don't think a song should fall apart like a cheap watch on the street. I think it's important to make a song a renewable resource. Something that can be listened to again.

When pouring the coffee, you said you didn't want to get too awake when writing songs. What do you mean by that?

A cup of coffee, to me, comes when I'm working on everything from the first violin down. Lyrics and melody -- those things come in a non-narcotic state. They must be carved out stoically.

There's a German word for that moment between inspiration and execution. I get that, not with a paintbrush under the Sistine Chapel. I get that with this rather menial songwriting thing with the tools.

I want that moment of contemplation or meditation when you're moving with this thing, you're not in a lotus position, you're working like a hornet out of hell -- all of that work is supportive of the original revelation. Something is revealed to you. Perhaps it's something that you've experienced many times but never on this level.

So you work within that emotional frame. And it's essential that a song convey emotionality. It doesn't have to be a first degree burn. It's an embarrassing pursuit because of its vulnerability.

You said songwriting is a revelation. What is the source of that revelation?

It is always the truth that matters. It's the truth that everyone wants.

An absolute truth?

Yes, the truth is absolute. Many people write for many different reasons. I know why I write. It's always nice when it goes well and every song is to me like offspring. It matters that much.

Songwriting should represent its central value -- that it is a triumph. That it is born at all is a triumph -- a triumph of the human spirit.

Reprinted with kind permission by Paul Zollo. The interview is taken from his book SONGWRITERS ON SONGWRITING (expanded edition), published by Da Capo Press, New York. Further information on the book are available on Paul Zollo's website.