Content and Delivery

                                    A Note About Content and Delivery

                                                         by Wilbur Witt

     This may be the dullest article I've ever written, but it needs to be said if for no other reason than the subject keeps popping into my head and I know the only way to remedy that is to write about it. The subject is content, or moreover, what to say when you have nothing to say. Bloggers, YouTube video producers, songwriters, you name it, are all driven by one thing and that one thing is the desire to produce their particular form of communication every day. As a beginning songwriter I had this fear that if I didn't write at least a song a day the muse would depart and I would lose the ability to ever write another song. I've talked to a lot of other writers and that worry seems to be universal. This is why in a typical songwriter's catalog you will find a very few very good songs embedded in a score of what we used to call "mill" songs. A mill song has good rhyme, meter, fair melody, everything that a song needs, but it just doesn't "pop." 

     Sadly, this is the bulk of material that most aspiring musicians head to Nashville with. It impressed family and friends back home, mainly because few people can even play a guitar and fewer still can string words  and music together and make something respectful come out the other end. When they get to the big leagues they become disappointed because most of their collection is mill songs. What they fail to see is all songwriters have that. The difference is the successful songwriter recognizes this and continues to produce material in the confident knowledge that about one out of fifty songs will be the one the producers will say, "Play that one again for me, will you?"

     Time was when you bought an album one, possibly two songs were the ones you wanted and the other eight or ten were straight up mill songs. They were filler, placed on the vinyl because you made more money selling an album than selling a single. Steve Jobs put an end to this with the introduction of iTunes. If you will note, although entire CDs are there for purchase, you are not chained to just that one option and may cherry pick any song you wish. An "A" grade songwriter can grind out any number of mill songs on request and the studios depended on that to fill albums for all of their one hit wonders that were being pushed at the time. Even the Beatles had their share of mill material, and if you don't believe that just force yourself through "The Long and Winding Road" a couple of times and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. 

     Blogging has its mill songs, too. Ninety percent of the blogs I read are just paper filler, but I'm not inferring the blogger should wait until the best of the best flows from their fingertips. If they did that they would rarely write and they would never sharpen their skills. Just realize it for what it is. Don't think you are endowed with some power that makes every grocery list you scribble down a masterpiece destined to change the direction of the Western World. 

     But how does one arrive at good content?  What are the factors that, when properly blended, make people want to read what you have written?  Well, first of all you must identify your audience. When I was doing my shows at Pennington Lounge in Nashville my group of followers were mainly middle aged men who had come with their families to see the Nashville scene while on vacation. These men had been walking all over OpryLand, all day, with their wives, children, and grandchildren, and while that was uplifting, I'm sure, long about ten o'clock, while the women folk were putting the kiddos to bed in the room, old Weird Wilbur was taking the stage singing about naked women and beer!  http://youtu.be/A-21WPoqTfA  And that was just about as close to Nashville's wild side as these guys wanted to get. These gentlemen had never broken an egg in their lives, worked hard, been responsible, but they could order a pretty respectful martini, sit back and get a few laughs. I would come on stage and my opening statement was always the same; Hey guys, I'm Weird Wilbur from Austin, Texas. I've been married five times, stand up Christian and I write about it. Fact is, I've been run off so many times I though PMS meant "Pack My Shit!". My first song was always "Every Time I See A Pig I Think Of You," written by my friend, Dave Talley back in Kansas.         http://youtu.be/uNbp4dyvoj0

     If I had done a straight up country show they would have had a drink and retired. They'd seen that show all day, and frankly, they were sick of it. The same rule applies to blogging. Realize that there are people who will seek out your subject matter and frankly there are those who won't. The rest of my show would leave the group in stitches, but their wives, if they drifted down to the lounge, by and large would not like my show  My act was the most politically incorrect, chauvinistic repertoire you could imagine. From the very clean Pig Song I digressed all the way down to a one line tune about date rape given to me free of charge by Tommy Overstreet. 

     The one factor that will get your readership to rise is professionalism and style. In blogging I get a lot of amazement from the fact that, after listening to my songs, people are frankly amazed that I can use three and four syllable words. Even a mill blog cannot be sloppy. The public does not forgive that. Some ideas are just not that hot, but if your supporters have to endure an occasional dull topic, i.e. the blogger who writes about cooking will occasionally have to turn out a piece on how to properly boil an egg, they will be disappointed if your form, spelling, and use of language is sub-standard. I had a song, a parody, that I'd written, and I had such little respect for this song that I never recorded it. Still haven't to this day. I took an old standard by Jim Reeves, "He'll Have To Go," and rewritten it into a tune called "You've got Mail," where I strung a bunch of gags about cyber-sex into the melody. It was a straight up mill song, but my manager, Michael Lee, told me to make the guitar flawless, and I have the ability to change my voice. I used this ability to help other writers record demos they wished to parlay to successful singers. If the demo sounded like the targeted artist they were more likely to give it a listen. I sounded just like Jim Reeves when I sang this song, and on a personal appearance this made the song pop. Replacing the flowing lines of Gentleman Jim with lines like, "And I'll be here for you, my dear, and I'll 'f' up your head. . ." were the perfect paradox, and that's what makes comedy work. Surprise and misdirection. 

     You should do this with that blog you write where you understand it's not all that great, but your delivery assures your readers that it's still YOU. This is why Elvis could stomp his fat ass around the stage in his later career, actually READING the words to a song he was singing from a sheet of paper in his hand and people were spellbound. He was still Elvis, and he understood delivery!  When you get this then even your mundane blogs will become special in that they are your style, and frankly, sometimes even you don't understand the greatness of what you write. I've seen then many times when someone would request that I sing some song I'd written that I hated, but it had meant something to THEM!  

     Happy blogging, get back with me, and remember, write, write, write. 

Syncing With Your Audience

                                         Methods That Work For Me

                                                          Wilbur Witt

     Keeping in the flow of community is important when you are in the business of writing. Being disconnected is a deadly sin, and you can readily see that in blogs that get very few reads. This comes from not being in sync with what's trending. The rule is simple. You have your interests, and they have their interest, and if you're going to achieve some level of notoriety you must find a way to unify the two or you will be forever dancing with yourself. 

     The whole idea of writing, any writing, is to communicate with people. You acquire this trait, you're not born with it. In the music business, those of us who aspire to actually write songs go through this learning curve. Here in Texas, back in the day, everyone wanted to be like Willie Nelson. Consequently, we all started turning out songs that we wanted to sound just like Willie. What we didn't understand was the world already had a Willie. When someone hits everyone thinks they can jump on the bus. Like Waylon Jennings said in a song, "Old Hank made it hit, we all ride the freeway, but I don't think Hank done it this way." No truer words were ever sang. By the time you hear the first hit on the radio the bus has already left the station, and all the riders are already there. They've BEEN there!

     I wrote in the vacuum of the studio. My ability was being able to grind out a song anytime someone needed it. They were good, had meter, melody, and my lyrical abilities surpassed everyone in my circle, but that doesn't buy one beer when you go on stage and no one is listening, or worse yet, keep requesting a Willie song. You have just ceased being an artist and become a DJ! 

     My solution was to do comedy. Back then, Ray Stevens was the man to be if you wanted country comedy. His parodies, and style had a spot on the Opry, and all the tourists could take their kids to his show. Unfortunately, I wasn't playing to mommy, daddy, and little Philipe at OpryLand, I was playing in Harker Heights, Texas, five miles from Fort Hood, sixty miles from Willie's house, to soldiers and bikers. I had to go with the trend. I could mount the stage, sing, "16th Avenue,"     http://youtu.be/OdwzSXHrZmI.   and they would just get mad! And I believed in that song. I've lived every line of that song, and I'm not ashamed to say it still brings tears to my eyes. I would one day live in that room "where no curtain ever hung," but that didn't  mean shit to the bikers and GIs at Crocodile Dundee's, and  that's  where you learn the value of the rewrite. The next time I did a show I took the same idea, with a few key changes, and presented, "F'd, F'd Over and Hungry!" I broke through the language barrier.  http://youtu.be/H1szB_rhgzI

     Did I like this? Well, you do the math. I've written around 3,000 serious songs, and I'm not kidding, we'll get to that later in this article, but I've written less than 50 gag songs, so where's  my interest? However, I had to sell product. One thing I've been blessed with is always having my back against the wall. There are many times when the power was about to be shut off in the studio the next day, and all that saved it was doing a show and selling a case of albums the night before at the WaterHole Bar and Grill. In Nashville we got down to nothing to eat, and I sold albums at Pennington's lounge, right across from the Opry, and we ate catfish later that night.  That's the other thing you have to develop. Even though you should sing (or write) like you don't need the money, don't FORGET the money. In the words of Billy Joe Shaver, "I declare to my soul when you have no way to go, you better know I'm gonna get my share of mine!" http://youtu.be/LpEElGVgv24. Billy Joe came out with this video while I was working in Nashville. We were both from central Texas, and more than one  person told me at the time that I was imitating his style, but by then I'd touched the golden calf and untold them he was imitating ME! Fact was we had the same background, grew up fifty miles apart, and had the same influences. He even had momentary lapses of musical sanity just like I did.  I wrote the "Anthem," and he wrote " White Man's Watermelon!"

     Now, you will not pay those kind of  dues blogging on Google + or WordPress, but you have to develop that spirit if you are going to succeed. And by success I don't really mean money. Money is just one thermometer of success. In this new world, getting people to read what you write is just as important. The underlying factor is ego. Forget what your therapist tells you, if you don't have ego in this business you are doomed to failure. When I sing for anyone, be it a group of people in a bar, or one girl in front of a fireplace, I am fully aware that i AM Weird Wilbur, I HAVE sold songs to total strangers, and I HAVE been married five times, stand up Christian. You must believe in yourself, and you must believe you have something to offer. If you don't have that then go punch a time clock.  If you make the plunge into publishing  of any kind you will eventually go head to head with someone just like me. And just like Michael Lee told me years ago, no one asked you here. You have to kick in the door, but If you build a better burger they will come. When you hear anyone blaming the system for their lack of success, just ask yourself, is ANYONE succeeding in this medium. I'll guarantee you there are. Don't imitate them, but figure out what they do, and then use that, and be you!  That brings us to the some final thoughts. 

     Laziness is the one thing that will defeat you. Ever wonder why so many songwriters get on drugs, or turn into alcoholics?  Is it boredom or a bad life?  Not really. You can't be bored in the a business where everyone's trying to take your food away, and everyone has a bad life. We all have crap in our lives. No, it's that to be a successful writer you have to be obsessive compulsive. I said I've written over 3,000 songs. Well that's an estimate. I have heard people sing my stuff, and honestly can't remember writing it. That's because some days I would turn out as many as ten songs for someone, always on an open license, allowing them to edit, arrange, any record them anyway the artist saw fit. If you don't believe that's the way it's done just find the original form of "Crazy" demoed by Willie, and compare it to Patsy Cline's version. All hit songs have to be "cover able" or able to adapt to an artists particular style. The Beatles learned this early on by trading songs with other groups. 

     The hours of doing this takes the lazy out of you. The ability to write an article like this one, read it, not like it, scrap it, and write it all over again, and again, and again. My book, Dobbit Do, was edited ten times, and finally rewritten twice. The public does not forgive slovenly work. They can do that themselves. Everybody has a brother in law who plays a guitar  From you they expect perfection!  Do this for 42 years and you'll just about have it. Twists your life a bit. Medication may be required. Mine is dry Martinis. 

     When I finish this article I will read it, and then read it out loud. It must roll off the tongue, or it won't work. Did you ever read a blog and think, "Good points, but OUCH!". That's because it doesn't "cook.". The human mind searches for form and flow. The brain is set up to look for patterns, and repetitive flow. When listening to a song, you may not even realize your ear is searching for what the songwriter calls the "rule of 13." Listen to your favorite songs and note how many times the hook line is made up of 13 syllables.  That's not an accident, folks, and i cant tell you how it works, I just know it does. It's what makes one song sound "lumpy" and another sticks in your head.  It's like breathing in and out.When I see the blog, or hear a song without this mental flow it comes across to me as a bumpy road. And you can't be taught this, you have to learn in through experience. When you read your blog out loud take note where you stumble, and if you were reading into an audience at a lecture hall those would be the parts where you would say, "I'm sorry," or "I mean," or any number of things required to explain why you're having to step back and do that part again. When you read out loud, and this happens, CHANGE THAT!  Remember, if it rolls off your tongue, it will roll into the mind of your readers. People search for patterns, order. I hate Rap, but I can't stop listening to it because I'm fascinated with the meter. 

     And remember sync. That's important. This morning I searched for a topic. I read the news, watched about ten videos, and then read my email. I follow everybody I can. I scan the subject lines of about 300 emails a day, and read the ones that catch my eye. Today I noticed there was a great deal of interest in blogging methods, the software, the various platforms, and a host of other things all related to this new form of communication. Now normally this would bore me to tears, but I took a step back and realized that I had something to offer.  The bloggers, while honestly trying to help, were dancing around the surface while not delving into the real meat, which is the spirit. As a songwriter, who really did quit his day job, and leaped into the fire, I knew some things that I've already paid the dues for that perhaps will help some blogger struggling to communicate and just not quite being able to put their hands on it. I hope I've done that. I hope this article lights one candle for someone, and brings them the joy I've felt, as a writer. 

     If you find something worth while here please let me know. If you have questions please ask. You can even disagree with me, I don't mind.   I love interaction, and I've made mistakes. This is a new medium. It's developing. I hope I've added something in some small way. 

New delivery, same song

                                                     Google Authorship

     I'm having to relearn the business of writing. The creation of articles is something that you learn from years of experience, but the delivery is ever changing. In the old days you cut a record and then went looking for someone to manufacture and distribute that record. Along came iTunes and YouTube and all the rules changed. This is good, and bad. Good, in that everyone can instantly display their product, but there is a down side. Time was you had to pay your dues. If you had a song, or book that was good perhaps some one would pick you up and publish you. The room at the top was very small, and once there you competed against other people who, like you, had been through the fire and knew the deal. Now your competition is everyone on the net. 

     But the basic talent remains the same. The tools are all that changed. Would it make Mark Twain any less Mark Twain if he were to be using a word processing program rather than pen and paper. Would Leonardo de Vinci be less on Photoshop?  My formula remains the same. Write, write, write. All successful song writers have written hundreds,mif not thousands of songs. It's the same with blogging. I write as much as I can. Every time a good idea hits, I put it down. 

     This is an exciting time for writers. I expect we will see an entirely new art form develop. New Betty Crockers as ordinary housewives share their knowledge. New political ideas as people venture into areas that were minority thoughts before. The world library is growing by leaps and bounds, and the old restrictions of the human spirit are being ripped away. The world is becoming one mind, not always agreeing, but always communicating, and as long as that happens there is always hope. 

http://allacartetraining.com/google-authorship/

Take a rest now and then

I'm going to rearrange my office here at the house and get seriously back into completing my latest book, CenterVille. This is what I was trying to drive home on my blog last night. No matter how long you set a writing project down it never just goes away. It just gets better. The bad part is when it's published, and you read it later and wonder why you didn't do it differently. For this book I had to learn how to embalm a body, do forensics for a serial killing, and learn how to bounty hunt. There WAS a learning curve here. Always take your time. Time is your friend, and if you die before you finish. . .BEST SELLER!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/pamela-woodward

Write Like You Don't Need The Money

                                      What It Takes To Be A Writer

     I think the day I first realized I was a writer was in the fourth grade. It was in Shreveport, Louisiana, and every Wednesday they brought us all to the auditorium to watch films. It was the best day of the week, and the room was packed. During one of the films a teacher remarked that songs had rhyming words. I was spellbound!  I got home that day, put on record after record, and it was true. Every song was a poem. This measured order  of the words was a real "aha" moment for me. At this time I couldn't write poems, but I could read them, and that was enough for me. 

     About the sixth grade I began to do something once a month or so. I would take my Big Chief tablet (remember those?) and systematically write from 1 to 1,000. My teachers wondered why I did this, and I couldn't explain it, but it had something to do with order. As the numbers flowed onto the paper a feeling of great relaxation came upon me, and the universe was put in order. 

     I loved film day as much as the other kids, but there was something I discovered that I could do that they had no concept. When I saw a movie I remembered it. Every scene, every line, everything. Our black and white TV never worked right, and even when the signal was there it would pop a streak about one-third of the way across the screen and someone would have to go and strike it on the top. Sometimes the streak would go away, sometimes it wouldn't. To compensate for this I would lie in bed, close my eyes, and run a movie from my mental data base through my mind, and I remembered them all. After a while I began to "edit" these films where I thought I could make them better. I noticed that there were a lot of films that were alike. They had different characters, but I could always tell how the story would end. 

     By the time I got to high school I began to write a book each year. I would use a thick composition notebook, and when the notebook was full, the book was done. I actually got into trouble when I wrote a thriller about a bomb threat in a school. The perpetrators perfectly timed it, the characters were diverse, and it had two through lines. Only problem was my bomb worked!  I devised a bomb with gunpowder, an old fashioned alarm clock and a lantern battery. Principle freaked out and called the cops. They were really irritated that I had distributed about fifty handwritten copies around the school and had a high school best seller, even if it was free. And this was in 1968!  

     That scared me off for a while. Over the next few years I sent a few letters to the editor through the local newspaper but didn't try to write very much. During this time I learned to play the guitar. They old fascination with rhyming words came back and I tried to compose songs. They were awful. I was reaching for the rhymes, and didn't even worry about what the song was really saying so long as it got to the end. 

     After my first divorce I began to pick up my guitar again. Without pen and paper one night I plucked a few simple chords, and some words rolled off my tongue.  

Rogers taught me train songs

And Williams taught me blues

But Don Curry taught me how

To sing the pain out of my soul

But someone had to put it there

So I left that for you

Now singing out the pain's

About the best thing that I do. 

     I simply sang what I meant. The melody was plain, but the message was direct. After that I wrote one song after another, and eventually did one man shows in bars in Texas. I would do three hour sets and never sing anything but my stuff. There was two sides to my brain. One very depressed and serious side, and one very humorous side that didn't takes anything serious. The humorous side fed my wallet, the serious side fed my ego. 

     When I arrived in Nashville my manager, Michael Lee, told me to pick out a hit song that I liked, sit down, and write it out on a tablet. He told me that would let me know how it feels to write a hit. When I wrote an original he would take it and tell me to take each line and write another song based on that line. He said that would take the lazy out of me. Every day I had to write, produce and record a song, and take it around Music Square to leave it at all the publishers and record companies. My only problem was, while my songs were smooth, had good style, and melody, folks like John Anderson, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings were writing better than me. 

     One day Michael came up to the studio where I was living. He asked what I'd written that day. I lost it. I asked him who could write under these conditions? He lit a cigarette, looked at me, and said, Kris Kristofferson, in this very room! He told me to write a song about being in the music business. He left, and when he returned I picked up a guitar and sang a rock-a-billy tune that said. . . 

Since my baby left me and I had no place to go

I took myself to Nashville and I got myself a show

I headed up to Music Square and found a whole lotta shaking going on

Yeah, I was ready for the guitar picking country music world or rock and roll!

I like them Texas ladies, man you know they sure are sweet

But I don't like that child support and can't STAND that Texas heat

So I loaded up my pickup truck and hauled my ass down the road

I was headed for the guitar picking country music world or rock and roll

     That Friday night, at Pennington's lounge, across from the Opry, I did nothing but funny songs. We sold albums at the concession and ate catfish at the Nashville Palace when the show was over. But, I could never get a contract. Roy Acuff ruled Nashville back then with a Baptist stick and my stuff made Richard Pryor look like an altar boy. Now, I wasn't as bad as some rappers today, but when you mount a stage in Nashville Tennessee, and open your show with 'F' You Texas RCA didn't exactly beat down your door!  

     I cut an album at Universal Artists Studios. No, I didn't have a contract. John Brandt, my engineer was doing some work there so we slipped in one night and used their stuff to do the album. You don't get much more outlaw than that! Eat it Willie!  I had a good cut, I was fed up with Nashville, and Roy simply would NOT die, so I came back to Austin. Distribution was hard. We sold CDs in bars. I went into Real Estate and hated it. We made a fortune, and I hated it even more. 

     It was during this time that I purchased a computer. It had a word processor on it. Holy smoke!  One day I sat down and just started writing a book. Balls to the wall. No idea where I was going with it, but came up with an idea and wrote Sharon. My wife discussed the story with me and we put both our names on it. Then we wrote two more, CigarBox, and Dobbit Dö. 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/pamela-woodward

     I had movie plots in my head, and when I wrote prose I had a sense of meter, and a way of circling to the end. Then Steve Jobs came up with iTunes. I no longer needed a distributor, and Roy could go to hell. I had SALES!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/weird-wilbur/id265789519

     And now I've discovered blogging. I didn't have much respect for blogging at first. I thought it was a poor man's self stimulation for a no-talent writer. Well, I've been wrong before, and I was wrong now. I've never met a more talented, kind, helpful bunch of people in my life, and I began to notice that they addressed issues that everyday people were interested in. Everything from recipes to philosophy. And they did it because they LOVED it. Like they say, you gotta sing like you don't need the money. 

     I haven't got this blog thing completely bucked out yet, but I have ideas, and a whole lot of people willing to guide me. I do have some rules. They're simple, and I paid all the dues for them so I'll let you have them for free. 

 Don't write until you have something to say. Let the well fill, it will come. I read the news every morning, and when something strikes me, I write. 

Don't ramble. Stay on point. I call it circling. You have a good point, state it, explain it, and then circle back. 

Read out loud after you write. If it doesn't roll off your tongue it will hurt your reader's eyes. 

Be original. Don't let anyone tell you to be like this, or like that. You are you, and no one can write like you but you!

Don't be lazy. If you get tired and want to finish a blog, go make some coffee. Read what you've written out loud. You'll be amazed. 

Don't write a blog with a preconceived idea. Open your mind. Let the blog talk to you. Sometimes the conclusion will amaze you. 

And finally, enjoy. This is not work, it's love. Someone, somewhere out there will read your blog and it will touch them, and at that moment, you become one. A lot of people never feel that. And I have a saying about that, it ain't sex, but it's damn close!

Happy Blogging

16th Avenue