Enjoy the video or the transcript below of a little chat that explores the “simple but not easy” answer.
KAREN: Hi, I’m Karen Joy Brown.
KATIE: And I’m Katie Phillips of Supernova Support, a program that supports songwriters in making their best songs.
KAREN: That’s right, damn right. Damn straight. I wanted to have a little conversation with you to just get that beautiful bouncing-off of a community about a concept that I was thinking about. I wrote a little email thing about it to our people, and I realized I’m like, ooh, this is a deeper well than I realized when I mentioned it in the in the email and it’s the question— how do you know a song is done? I realized that something I said in the email missed the mark a little bit because it was almost sounding like a corporate question like…
KATIE: ….Is it ready to go to press!?
KAREN: Exactly, that’s not what I meant. I was thinking, like, what is the goal when we say is a song done, like, what does it even mean that it’s done? Do you want to share about that? How do you feel like a song is done?
KATIE: I feel like I know a song is done when I don’t have to think about it very much when I’m performing it, whether that’s in front of people, or by myself or in my car or whatever, but I’ve embodied it. Almost like memorizing a monologue or something like in a play where there’s no separation between, or a fusion of yourself as who you are and then yourself as a performer, or a song interpreter or whatever it is— a singer, a storyteller.
It’s when the story feels fluid and there’s no road bump. It makes sense, you know? And also even if it’s not just like, a huge, big show-stopping, epic song, even if it’s more reserved or softer, there has to be points in it that are landing pads. Like, there’s certain ideas or concepts or arcs in the story that really have to land in a certain way, and usually the way I can tell is if it makes me laugh or cry.
KAREN: Oh, yes!
KATIE: If I crack myself up or if I make myself cry, or if I get chills. I usually have some kind of physiological response to it.
And then it’s a matter of once you’ve written the song, it could feel done, but then you start to learn it and you realize, oh, this phrase sucks. Like, I keep tripping over it or I can’t remember it to save my life or it feels disconnected from the story. Like, I love the poetry of this line, but it’s not really serving the story or the song.
So I think there’s a lot of ways to test it. I think it’s probably is different for everyone. But I do think that having it feel settled in your body to where you’re not thinking and you can just let it channel through you.
KAREN: Yeah. It feels that when it’s done.
I really appreciate that you got right into that kind of somatic part of it because, I’ll speak for you, one of the things that Katie and I kind of realized when we were coming up with the whole idea for Supernova Support was that some of the ways that we were doing music before when we were performing a lot, we were out there and doing things like, this is what we’re supposed to be doing. It was not necessarily very connected to the body.
There was a lot of disjointedness and a lot of doing this in order to achieve a certain thing. It didn’t always come connected to the body in that way, like, “I’m doing it for a reason and it’s coming from my soul.” I think that that we need to give ourselves the time to connect to our songs in that way somatically— feel it in your bones: this is done.
KATIE: Yeah. I will say with the Bootleg Honeys stuff, like learning other people’s songs, was my favorite part about the band. Getting to be a support person. That was something that was so fun.
KAREN: Yeah.
KATIE: And I think I became really aware of that somatic feeling of when a song felt like it was “done,” even if I hadn’t written it when I was performing it with the songwriter, but it felt like my words too. I got a feeling of knowing when a song was done in that context of when we all were gelled into it, coming from an authentic place in all of us, collectively, even if you hadn’t written it.
KAREN: Now that is beautiful because I think that sometimes when we get outside of ourselves and focus on something else we can start to notice what all the steps are or the components towards it feeling done and embodied.
That’s one of the things that I really wanted to come out in this conversation with you is again, how much time and often effort it takes in order to arrive at that place. Sometimes we get rid of a song or throw something away because we think if it was a good song it would immediately……
KATIE: Yeah, it would be good already. Exactly. That’s why it’s so great too to know if you feel like something’s not working, you don’t have to get rid of it. You can just be like, well, maybe this isn’t for this song.
Something that Mary Gauthier said in both workshops I took from her was like, a lot of times the first verse you write, you end up getting rid of. Usually a lot of times the first things we write in a song are just the doorway into it and it’s going to help you get to what the song is really about. But you don’t have to throw away anything, you can just put it on the pile, as she says.
KAREN: So true.
KATIE: And that kind of makes it fun, too, because then it’s like, oh, I just have this one line, nothing else is coming. Well, I’ll put it over here, so maybe on a day where I need some inspiration, I can pull from this collection of songs, lyrics or musical ideas.
I had this one song, or melody, or song progression kind of thing for literally a decade and I always kept coming back to it. It was just never working and then I had this other idea— I think I’d written some lyrics and I was like, huh, I wonder if that melody would work with this and it did! It came together so fast like they were just waiting for each other.
KAREN: Exactly, oh my gosh, I had a couplet that I think took probably about four years. It’s one of the favorite lines from a song that I love, Send Me a Sign— no one’s above lying to hold on to something they love.
I had that couplet for a long time, and it germinated for so long until I had that moment. I think it was a 4th of July where like, my husband and daughter had gone to a 4th of July thing that I didn’t want any part of. I had a moment and all of a sudden a chord progression I was working on, I went— wait a minute, I think it goes with that couplet and then the rest of the song just, bloop.
KATIE: Well, it also makes me think about your song, Grand Canyon which I think is one of my top five Karen Joy Brown songs ever. You had that song in the, this is a piece of shit, I’m never going to finish it so what’s the point pile for how many years?
KAREN: I mean, that was getting close to a decade.
KATIE: Yeah, that’s insane. And then you wrote like a whole other part to it and it just like came together, and I helped you with it!
But that is such a great example of like some things just aren’t ready to be born yet.
KAREN: But don’t throw them away because you never know how many hundreds of times you have to sing the same line in a row until you actually can hit the right intonation!
KATIE: Yeah.
KAREN: Or how many times you have to do that one fucking chord! You know what I’m saying? Sometimes you have to simplify it, but don’t throw away.
KATIE: No. And that’s why I like to listen to stuff a lot, but there’s a fine line, you can get like demo-itis or whatever where you lose perspective. But I do like to listen to demos because that sometimes is the only way when I can hear it and realize something isn’t working or I realize something is working really, really well.
To have a little bit of distance and to be really interacting with my song as a listener as opposed to a writer. I mean like I can kind of wear both hats at the same time but you know, to get a little distance in that way.
I know a lot of people hate listening to themselves and I think that there’s so much validity in that. It can be disarming watching yourself, but I also think there’s so much so much to learn from it and I think it can be a beautiful pathway into some very deep self-love.
KAREN: I think you’re right. It’s a craft secret weapon we’ve definitely discussed.
You know, sitting here and just having this discussion reminds me that I’m thinking of whoever’s listening to this, so many of you, hello! I think of how many years I suffered through this shit by myself. You know what I’m saying? Instead of this glorious era that we have created for ourselves where a community has arisen who want to talk about this too!
KATIE: Yeah.
KAREN: And how it’s changed this thing that I suffered with, and second-guessed myself, and imposter syndromed the shit out of myself instead of talking with you about it. Instead of coming to Song Salon.
KATIE: And then it’s like, now it’s fun. Now it’s fun to have that problem. Now I’m almost excited when I’m stuck on something because I know I have a whole community of people to bring it to and even say fuck off to all of those ideas or suggestions. Because we get we can get so stuck in ourselves and just lose sight of the song completely. Like all of a sudden it’s like, “I suck.”
I mean I had a moment like that the other week when I’ve been trying to make a playlist of these songs I want to record. I was listening to them and I was like, this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Who do I think I am? I’m not a good singer. I am a shitty songwriter. And I hated it all.
But then I also had this little part of me that was like, well, that’s interesting that you’re having this thought right now. It was tiny, but it was just enough where I was like, yeah, okay, maybe this is fleeting. Maybe something else is going on.
KAREN: Celebrate that moment!
KATIE: And that is different than just falling down the hole and being like, well, I guess this is it.
KAREN: That’s right.
KATIE: And you told me too.
KAREN: I know, and I just laughed in your face.
KATIE: I know.
KAREN: Which is the beginning of Supernova— laughing in each other’s faces about our “not good enough” traumas.
KATIE: And self-doubt.
KAREN: Well, oh my gosh. Thank you for doing this for me because I was thinking, can we just talk about this? Because it’s a real thing that people struggle with and there’s not a pat answer, but there’s a lot of shit out there that’s like, let us sell you this five-step plan that will show you exactly how a song’s done.
KATIE: No, no. Also, I want to say that I’ve kind of always felt like once something’s recorded, it’s done and you can’t ever change it. I’m shifting that idea a lot, even if you’ve recorded something and you figure out a different line or something, sometimes it will come to you later, and it’s like who fucking cares, you know, you can always re-record it or that’s just the live version.
They can be living things, they are living things. Cover songs— I’ve changed words that I want to be a little different, which you’re not really supposed to do, but songs are living things as long as people are singing them.
KAREN: Yeah. Sorry, I just thought of something ridiculous... So your songs are like your babies out there. Someone else could put a tattoo on your baby!
KATIE: Don’t tattoo a baby, Karen. My God.
KAREN: Maybe it’s just piercing their ears when they’re four months old.
KATIE: Okay, we are in not good territory.
KAREN: It’s the perfect time to close things up!
KATIE: Thank you for entertaining this idea with us.
KAREN: But we would love to talk about this more with you, so come to a Song Salon so we can hear about your song that you’re having doubts like this about.
KATIE: Yeah. You can also just hang out with us one on one too. We have private slots open at the moment, and our writing hour which is producing some amazing shit.
KAREN: Yes.
KATIE: I was not expecting it to be so cool. And you can subscribe to that on Substack.
KAREN: That’s it!
KATIE: Happy songwriting!
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