Louisa Branscomb’s Songwriter Workshop: Podunk Bluegrass Festival 2011

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Written by Doug Mathewson

Monday, 22 August 2011 14:20

Podunk’s Roger Moss asked Louisa to use the workshop to come up with a song that described the Podunk experience--a song that reflected family, seeing old friends and jamming with favorite tunes.

Going to a songwriting workshop with Louisa Branscomb was not to be missed. Penning great songs for Alison Krauss (“Steel Rails”) and Claire Lynch (“You’re Amazing Grace”) and others including The Whites, Dale Ann Bradley and Jim Hurst, Louisa was just the person to help hone my own songwriting skills.

There were four in the class: Dawn Kenney, Elizabeth Disessa, Mark Mulcahy and myself. We met at 10am in a large park storage building. Before we got around to introducing ourselves we were busy coming up with the initial format and structure and lyrics of the song.

Louisa had been loaned an odd hybrid instrument--a mando style body with 6 string guitar tuning by Gold Tone. She thought the instrument should “consider having surgery… it wasn’t born quite right,” she said, “but it’s alright to have minority instruments in bluegrass.” She started strumming and came up with an opening riff for the song.

During introductions Mark mentioned that Podunk revitalized him and was a life changing experience. It was like coming home to family. This became the focus of our song.

We started brainstorming key phrases relating to Podunk’s musical family island, in the middle of city streets. Louisa would write the suggestions down on large sheets of paper always trying to

reduce the thought to a simple sentence. She would ask, “Tell me in as few words as possible, what you want to say.” The fewer the words the more the thought is clarified. Then it’s time to structure the phrases into verses. Verses would sometimes lend themselves to a thought different from the original goal—possibly stating a more emotional, personal feeling but would distract from the song’s intention.

A lot of the phrases ended up in the final draft of the song. Phrases such as “There’s a hillside in New England surrounded by city streets,” “feel the bluegrass ‘neath your feet,” and “kicking off a brand new song.”

Louisa even evoked Carl Jung and gestalt when discussing the use of space in a song. “Carl Jung talks about life as a spiritual journey, not in the religious sense necessarily,

but in that we evolve as we go. If we live consciously, instead of automatically, we move more and more toward individuation or our "true selves," apart from messages about what we "should" be. To me, songwriters have this obligation and opportunity to live with awareness of what we think and feel, and give voice to that in our songs. To find your voice as a songwriter is this same process--connecting at a deeper level and giving expression to something we notice or want to write about. It's not always easy but it does make for powerful songs. I think the great writers are usually pretty brave, much as poets have to be.

I also like to think about the gestalt concept of figure and ground. We need to leave enough space around the words (depending on the kind of song, of course) so that the listener has room to fill in his or her own meanings and associations. It's not just the words themselves that the listener connects with. It's where they go with the words--in their own experience. The words and melody are just a way to take someone deeper into their own experience. While it's an individual thing, the great songs have both powerful words and enough "negative space" for listeners to bring their own thoughts and feelings, so it's a paradox--an individual thing but also a song that does that well connects with something universal--that goes beyond the actual words and melody to shared collective experience, such as loss, or hope, or desire. It's more than the sum of its parts--it's how all those parts work together, something about the magic of that; the song gets out of the way so the listener has room to move.”

Louisa suggests that space in a song gives the listener a chance to ruminate on the recent lyric and therefore makes the listening more enjoyable. Simplicity is another feature of Louisa’s teachings and the ability to focus on the real meaning of the song. Without focus the writer can become distracted or write off tangents that create more questions than answers and broaden, rather than condense the song.

Donna Ulisse and The Poor Mountain Boys were to perform the song during their performance on Sunday. Donna arrived around noon to read and edit the lyrics to suit her style. Donna is an accomplished songwriter as a well as a bluegrass vocalist. Since she had to sing the song, certain lines in the verse had to roll off her tongue in her style. We made a few edits and by 5pm the song was complete.

Podunk Theme Song – Public Domain
Writers Louisa Branscomb, Elizabeth Disessa, Dawn Kenney, Doug Mathewson and Mark Mulcahy.

1. There’s a hillside in New England
surrounded by city streets
Just a few steps past the pavement
Feel the bluegrass beneath your feet

2. Open hearts and mountain voices
Bluegrass fiddles fill the air
It’s a Podunk family reunion
You are always welcome there

Chorus
Here is where you find the ties that bind
Let the music lift you to the sky

3. Swapping stories since the last time
Kicking off familiar songs
They take you back inside the circle
where bluegrass memories linger on

Louisa will be planning a reunion workshop at her Woodsong Farm in north east Georgia, sometime in the fall after she finishes all the repairs at the farm from the tornado which passed through in April. The renovation will include a larger room for house concerts and workshops.

She is also planning to conduct a workshop at IBMA with Donna Ulisse as co-writer. Other co-writers Louisa has worked with include Claire Lynch, Craig Market, Becky Schlegel, and Dale Ann Bradley. Louisa is available for consults on one-on-one basis or by reviewing songs using email.

Asked if she has a memorable song she says, “I have a strong connection with all my songs in one way or another; they have different stories and meanings and sometimes the meanings change. Right now, my CD I'll Take Love seems to have a theme that echoes for me. I'm also honored that it was on the second ballot for Song of the Year and Recorded Event of the Year and the CD was on the last ballot for Album Of The Year.

But the song that's also personally meaningful is “This Side of Heaven,” since it was written about the Zen proverb “If your building burns down, there's just more room to see the stars.” The CD came out the day before the tornado hit on April 27. That song was eerily prophetic, because my barn did go down, and the way I have coped is to concentrate on the view -- just like the song told me -- only I never knew I was writing about my own barn. It's become sort of a theme song for the tornado survivors. And it was a candidate for nomination for Gospel Song of the Year. The Whites sang it on the CD.

“Steel Rails” is always meaningful because I hear stories from people who play it almost on a weekly basis and it never stops giving me a thrill to hear someone else is playing it. Once in about 1998 I picked up a guitar to sit in a few minutes in a hall jam session at SPBGMA, the kind of typical jam where nobody knows each other, and everyone jumps in. Someone suggested “Steel Rails,” and I kicked it off and sang it. Standing next to me on the outside of the circle was a woman who was commenting on things, partying and having a good time. When we finished she volunteered, "You're good, but you're no Louisa Branscomb!"

It was a compliment, I think...?”

Learn more about Louisa and Woodsong on her website at louisabranscomb.com.