Beautiful passage from Nick Hornby’s book ’31 Songs’ that I am reading now.
‘You Had Time’ sets itself a further handicap : it begins with more than two minutes of apparently hopeful and occasionally discordant piano noodling. I know, I know – neither ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ nor ‘(Hit Me) Baby One More Time’ begins with piano noodling, and they wouldn’t have been much good if they had; that’s not what pop is supposed to be about. But DiFranco’s song is nothing if not ambitious, because what it does – or, at any rate, what it pretends to do – is describe the genesis of its own creation : it shows its workings in a way that should delight any maths teacher. When it kicks off, the noodling sounds impressionistic, like a snatch of soundtrack for an arty but emotional film – maybe Don’t Look Now, because the piano has a sombre, churchy feel to it, and you can imagine Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie wandering around Venice in the cold, grieving and doomed. But it cheers up a little, when DiFranco makes out that she’s suddenly hit upon the gorgeous little riff that gives the song its spine. She’s not quite there yet, because she hasn’t found anything to do with her left hand, so there’s a little bit more messing about; and then, as if by magic (although of course we know that it’s merely the magic of hard work and talent) she works out a counterpoint, and she’s there. Indeed, she celebrates the birth of the song by shoving the piano out of the way and playing the song proper on acoustic proper – the two instruments are fused together with a deliberately improbable seamlessness on the recording, as if she wants us to see this as a metaphor for the creative process, rather than as the creative process itself. It’s a sweet idea, a fan’s dream of how music is created; I’d love to be a musician precisely because a part of me believes that this is exactly how songs are born, just as some people who are not writers believe that we are entirely dependent on the appearance of a muse.
– From Nick Hornby’s essay on the song ‘You Had Time’ by Ani DiFranco
You can hear ‘You Had Time’ here.
Do listen to it and tell me whether you agree with Hornby 🙂
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I like Hornby’s words, but it’s hard to tell entirely what he’s talking about because the YouTube video doesn’t feature the two minute piano intro. Maybe the person who made the video disagreed with Hornby and deleted the “noodling”.
I think I have the full version of that song somewhere around here. Hmm, where did that song go?
Thanks for mentioning that, M—–l 🙂 I was also wondering where is the two-minute noodling, because most of the versions of the song I discovered in YouTube were of the same length. Then I discovered a longer version of the song here. There seems to be some piano noodling here 🙂 Is that the full version of the song?
The second video seems to be the version of the song Nick Hornby is talking about. It’s the same length as the song that came with the Songbook CD. I didn’t listen to them both all the way through to see if they had any differences, though.
Thanks M—–l 🙂 I will link that to my post, then.
ooh, nice. I’ve never read Hornby but that passage has made me add him to my tbr. thanks so much.
Glad to know that, Monica 🙂 Hope you get to read Hornby’s books and like them. I also want to read his first novel ‘High Fidelity’ (which he mentions a few times in ’31 Songs’) which is about music.
I’ve not read this one by Hornby, but he seems to write about music the way he writes about books in his essay collections (starting with The Polysyllabic Spree). Thanks for including the link to the song! I was about to go hunt it down when I realized you’d included it 🙂
Glad to know that you liked reading that passage and enjoyed listening to the song, Erin 🙂 This book is a music lover’s delight. If you are a music lover, I think you will like this.
Oh I loved 31 songs! Somehow I ‘get’ Hornby better in his non-fiction works 🙂 I loved, among many other things, how he talked about feeling betrayed when you suddenly hear your favorite song in a mall.
This song is new to me, so yay for posting the vid! I think he’s spot-on with his description of the intro.
This song also reminds me of my indie music phase (which I still mostly listen to, but at the moment I’m more into ‘strong’ voices like muscial and opera).
Glad to know that you liked ’31 Songs’, Bina 🙂 I loved the book! Probably Hornby is a better essay-writer. I want to read his ‘High Fidelity’ now, which is his first novel set with a musical backdrop. I can understand that feeling about hearing one’s favourite song in the mall. Glad to know that you liked listening to DiFranco’s song.
He might just be 😀 You can really see how passionate and knowledgeable he is about music in High Fidelity. I just couldn’t at all relate to the main character (perhaps I should reread it and see if age has changed my perspective).
Sorry to know that you didn’t like the main character in ‘High Fidelity’. But glad to know that you liked the music part of the book. Have you posted a review of the book? I can’t wait to read it 🙂
I think it’s a good book, and I hope you’ll enjoy it! I read it pre-blogging, so no review. The main character is just a bit lost and it’s about a man who will or will not finally grow up. I just didn’t have the patience for that and kept thinking grow up and be responsible already 😀
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the book, Bina. Your comment – “I just didn’t have the patience for that and kept thinking grow up and be responsible already” – made me smile 🙂 I will look for ‘High Fidelity’ when I go to the bookstore next time.
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