Jesse Winchester Inteview

[Pleasin & Teasin]

Writing clearly
Winchester strives to make music that's easy on his listeners

By MICHAEL ECK, Special to the Albany Times Union
First published: Thursday, November 23, 2006

Songwriter Jesse Winchester says he doesn't remember many specific details about the writing of individual songs, but it's clear that he's fascinated by process and craft.
Raised in Memphis, Tenn., Winchester moved to Montreal in 1967 -- one of many young American men who would rather head north than be shipped to Southeast Asia. He became a Canadian citizen in 1973. Still, his draft-resister status prevented him from touring in the United States until those expatriates were pardoned by Jimmy Carter in 1977.


Winchester remained in Montreal until 2003, when he briefly returned to Memphis. This past spring, he and his partner, Cindy, moved to Charlottesville, Va.

Winchester spoke recently as he was preparing to embark on the trip that will bring him to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday for a holiday performance with the Roches.

Winchester's tunes have been covered by Jimmy Buffett, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, Nicolette Larson and others. We tried to get him to talk about "That's What Makes You Strong," a philosophical gem from 1999's "Gentleman of Leisure," but he mostly wanted to talk about other things.

Q: Do you remember the circumstances of writing "That's What Makes You Strong?"

A: I remember I was still living in Quebec. But I have no idea where the idea came from. I wish I knew where ideas come from, because I would get my beach chair and a book and just camp out right there.

Q: In general how does a song start?

A: I just sit and play -- usually the piano, sometimes the guitar. Sometimes I don't have an instrument at all. I just keep playing, and if I'm lucky a little kernel sort of comes to me. It's usually a phrase and in that phrase the whole thing seems to be implied -- the attitude, the subject, the groove, the melody, where it's going to go. Once I get that little germ of an idea I can start to do something you could call work or craft. Getting the germ, though, is so far out of my control that it's a little scary.

Q: And then?

A: Once you have the idea, it's simply a question of hacking it out. A lot of it involves putting down ideas and then taking things away. A lot of it is really rigorous editing. I sing and play a new song literally thousands of times to make sure that everything works properly; that the melody stays relatively consistent for each verse and chorus; that the lyrics scan properly to the melody.

Q: Some of your songs, like "That's What Makes You Strong," sound almost like aphorisms set to music. Is that the intent?

A: You have to be sure that the meaning is clear. You have to be honest and talk about real things, without being flighty or poetic or artistic. You're trying to be as conversational as you can. I remember something that Elmore Leonard says in interviews, he says, "I work very, very hard to try and make these books sound like I'm not writing." You don't want the listener to go away thinking, "Wow, what a well-written line that was; what a clever turn of phrase that was." You want the listener to go away thinking, "Yeah, I know just what you mean; I've felt that way myself."

Q: Do you finish every song you start?

A: No. It happens more times than I'd like to think about that I'll spend a week or two on something that I finally just decide that I hate.

Q: It's been seven years since your last studio album, "Gentleman of Leisure." Are you feeling less prolific?

A: I show up all the time. But I think my output has definitely slowed down. I don't know how to account for that. One reason is obviously age, the other one is possibly that I'm a stricter editor than I used to be. I don't let myself get by with things that I might have done earlier on. I used to be, in the beginning, sort of under the spell of the Bob Dylan school of writing where you can pretty much say anything as long its sounds a little mysterious and poetic. It didn't really matter if things were coherent. The first song that I ever wrote was called "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz," and now I wouldn't write something like that. The lyrics, today, I find really cryptic. It's hard to figure out really what the singer's talking about. Now I would rather make things very, very clear to the listener. Maybe that extra rigor in the editing slows me down. I hope so. I would hate to have to admit that it's just age.

[conched]

Thanks for the post, P&T.

I didn't realize he had moved back south.

That's What Makes You Strong...wonderful song.

[conched]

And I see he has a show at Charlottesville, VA at The Gravity Lounge on Dec 15.

http://www.gravity-lounge.com/