I don't think there are any clichés I try to avoid. As soon as I spot a cliché, I go for it. I feel like clichés are the most useful thing in songwriting. They're the tool on which you build all the rest of the song. Stephin Merritt More Quotes by Stephin Merritt More Quotes From Stephin Merritt I gave up music criticism because of the increasingly obvious conflict of interest. I couldn't say anything bad about the records when I might be meeting that person's manager backstage an hour later. Stephin Merritt records criticism say-anything At first I was laboring under the impression that Chinese lyrics didn't rhyme. That turned out to be untrue - they don't rhyme in translation. Stephin Merritt rhyme chinese impression Never try to do anything artistic when you're feeling something overwhelming. It's like driving a car: If you're experiencing road rage, pull over. Stephin Merritt car feelings trying Well, there are certainly original things to say. But I'm not sure that a pop song is the appropriate format to say them in. Stephin Merritt pop-song not-sure song Serious music isn't listened to in a casual setting. You don't want to listen to that in headphones on the subway. Stephin Merritt music-is serious I think there is such a valid concept as "serious music," meaning that if you don't take it seriously, you don't get it all. Stephin Merritt serious thinking There's a whole kind of melancholy that you can only attain with reverb. That's an example of a technology introducing a whole new meaning. Stephin Merritt melancholy technology kind The adventure is when people don't know what they're doing at all. Like, I think that the first pop band to use synthesizers as their main instrument and take it seriously was probably Silver Apples. And they sure didn't know what they were doing, and they sure don't sound like anything else. Stephin Merritt adventure people thinking Well, hardcore is so much about the body, in that you have to play as fast as possible. I'm not sure it can be ironized. You can't play faster, though I suppose that with the help of electronics you could play faster. Yeah, if you sped it up, that could ironize it. Stephin Merritt hardcore not-sure helping Well, things hold up even if they sound dated. It can be very difficult to listen to 80s pop songs with really, really gigantic smashed drum sounds. You just want to turn that gated reverb down on the snare. It sounds wrong now. It sounds amateurish. And ugly. But at the time it sounded state-of-the-art. So yeah, I think it's important not to sound state-of-the-art in a way that anybody else is going to sound. Or you'll quickly sound like yesterday's state-of-the-art. Stephin Merritt important song thinking There are only so many instruments you can layer on top of each other that aren't perfectly electronically programmed. "Long Vermont Roads" just cannot be performed live, because it's just too cluttered if it's played by humans. Synthesizers stay out of each other's way in a way that hand-played instruments never can. Stephin Merritt long There's already a great deal to do writing the songs. And if I were completely in control of it, nobody would be able to say "this song doesn't work." Stephin Merritt writing song If the songs were in lumps, then you would expect to understand what was going on in the plot. Which is not a realistic goal. And also the instrumentation is different for every show, so it's more varied sonically. And people are free to make up their own plots, of course. There are pretty dense and complicated plots, and they're simple songs. Stephin Merritt simple song people I actually prefer to hear small groups of instruments. Orchestras seem to lack a texture for me, or variety of texture. There's only about ten things you can do with one note in a string section. But a lone violin is continuously changing textures. Stephin Merritt lone variety Popular music of the last 50 years has failed to keep in step with advances in musical theater, namely Stephen Sondheim. But the two have grown apart so that popular music is based more than ever on a rhythmic grid that is irrelevant in musical theater. In popular music, words matter less and less. Especially now that it's so international, the fewer words the better. While theater music becomes more and more confined to a few blocks in midtown. Stephin Merritt music-is block musical That seems like one of the differences in expectations of "serious" and "popular" music that you can actually depend on the liner notes to explain yourself? Yeah. Whereas in popular music you depend on photo shoots. A hardcore band who looked like Duran Duran would have to depend upon those liner notes. Stephin Merritt hardcore serious expectations I can imagine lyrics becoming better written by smart machines rather than stupid musicians. Songwriters generally have nothing to say. They may as well be replaced by machines. Stephin Merritt smart musician stupid If you want to write a love song, you need to not try to write it for a particular person in a particular situation. It needs to be vague, otherwise you're going to fall into trap after trap of trying to rhyme with somebody's name. Keep it vague. Stephin Merritt writing song fall I write songs by sitting around in bars, so drinking songs are a little obvious. It's surprising that I don't write entirely drinking songs, since I am, in fact, drinking while writing the song. Drinking and love are the two principal sources of pleasure outside of music. There's only so many sources of pleasure, really. That's about it. Well, there are other arts as well. But none of them are as pleasurable as music, on a physical level. Stephin Merritt drinking song art There are so many clichés in the world, especially in music, that it's a never-ending creative font to just bring two of them together and let them interact. Stephin Merritt creative together world
