American singer songwriter Richard Shindell’s first appearance at this year’s Costa del Folk Ibiza was at one of the “Chance to Meet” sessions, in conversation with Steve Knightley. The two are well acquainted, Richard having guested with Show of Hands previously, and was doing so again for the spring tour starting immediately after Ibiza. Richard talked through his early, musical years, learning the guitar, tentative attempts at song writing, gradually gaining confidence in a song writer’s circle in New York. A record deal followed, well-known artists, including Joan Baez, covered some of his songs and led to his touring with her. Richard provides an excellent biography on his web site (https://richardshindell.com/bio/) fleshing out all this and more.
My conversation with Richard took place the following afternoon, shortly after he’d played a set at the afternoon concert. The last events he discussed with Steve took the story up to the late 1990s, shortly before a significant change in Richard’s life. He and his wife moved to Buenos Aires. This seemed an obvious point at which to start my own conversation with him.
Your conversation with Steve yesterday took us up to, I guess, the early 2000s. At that point had you moved to Argentina?
Richard Shindell: I moved there in June of 2000.
Very soon after you’d written the material for Joan Baez and were touring with her.
RS: Yes, that’s correct, but I did tour with her after that as well.
I find the Argentina connection quite fascinating, but you were saying this afternoon that you don’t do much performing in Argentina.
RS: No, I don’t.
Seeing those first few brief answers written down, you might think we hadn’t made too good a start. But factual questions lead to short factual answers and all that was about to change.
It’s getting on for 20 years that you’ve been living in a Spanish speaking country. How has that influenced what you do as a singer and a songwriter?
RS: Good question to answer. [Long pause]
I’m not sure it has influenced me in any way that I can describe. I’ve just kept on doing what I always did. Except that now I have to take an extra plane ride to do it. My presence in Argentina is odd, and it’s very much a refuge. It’s a place I go to decompress. To not be on the road. To not be playing in front of audiences. And that has to do with just my own personal need to live in a place where that dynamic, and it is very much a dynamic, of being in the public eye, even if it’s a small public, isn’t present. It’s still, for me, and it’s always been a challenge. And so, I think moving to Argentina suited me as a refuge from what felt like, not a bad thing, but something that was challenging to me.
That’s not to say it’s entirely healthy to have that dichotomy built into the way I live and work now. Because it did mean I made this division between playing in the north, working in the United States, the UK, Europe, Canada and then going home and not working. Just being Dad, a husband, a father. The guy who works on the house around the corner. And that became sort of a habit. And it really developed into a dichotomy, a kind of bipolar, hemispheric division and in some ways that’s wonderful but in other ways it’s not healthy because it creates a…. There’s a bit of disintegration involved, going in either direction. Whether going from south to north or north to south, there’s an element of adjustment that needs to happen, and this is something that’s apparently fairly common amongst ex-pats or emigres. There’s a kind of transition period whether you’re going back to the original place, the place you came from or going to the new place. Both of these places have their own identities, and they’re very strong. The relationships are different; the language is different, so many things are different; it’s a bit of a culture shock. And so, the period of transition, whether you’re going from one or the other is challenging. So, I’m finding it difficult recently to maintain it.
Do you feel that can be used in your song writing?
RS: Yeah. I do. But I haven’t quite figured out a way to do it yet. That’s an artistic challenge for me. Because what I should really be doing is writing in Spanish or doing some kind of bilingual thing. But you get into a situation where you have these two realities that are so distinct and so strong and that you carry within yourself. Explaining one to the other feels like a bridge too far. How exactly do I bring my Argentine experience to my English-based American folk/pop audience? They don’t know anything about it, and so it’s … And you want to be able to make a connection with people when you’re playing in front of an audience or making a record or writing a song. And so, I’m just about to begin a writing project in Argentina which I’m hoping will challenge me to do exactly that. I’m trying not to have these worlds be quite so separated.
Is this in English or in Spanish?
RS: It’s in English, it’s an English Master of Fine Arts programme, but there is a bilingual component to it. It’s happening in Buenos Aries and it’s happening in the north, there are residences in both places.
So, to answer your question, it’s kind of a challenge, and I’m spread rather thinly in hemispheres and time zones, and I’m looking for a way to be less so.
So, since you’ve been in Argentina, does that mean your song writing is largely done back in the States?
RS: No, I do write when I’m down there.
You’re writing with your North American head on?
RS: As it were, yeah.
On stage that afternoon, Richard had explained some background to his songs and I was interested in learning more. At the same time avoiding the classic, cliché questions, how, why, where did you write that song? So, the next question was raised with some hesitancy…
I was very intrigued by the way you were describing some of your songs this afternoon in terms of creating a different reality. I’m thinking of ‘There Goes Mavis’ in particular. I wondered if you approached that with the idea of wanting to communicate a message? But, which, to make it not too “preachy”, has your construct around it.
RS: No, that’s assuming there is a message, and there is none. Instead, what there is, is the writing of the song. And the process of writing the song, in my case, is never done, almost never done, with any preconceived idea of what I want to say, or wanting to make a comment on this state of affairs or anything like that. That’s never the way I go about doing things. That, to me, would have the cart before the horse. I always like what Dorothy Parker said about writing, “I never know what I think until I read what I’ve written.” In a way, that’s true because there’s a process of clarification or definition of ideas that happens when you put words together in a certain way. It’s not accidental that you put the words together in a certain way; you do it deliberately because they are ideas. But then, all of a sudden, you find yourself, having said something that’s much larger than what you started out trying to say.
At first, it only seems possible to write the first line. But if you’ve got a first line, then the next thing that must be possible is to write the second line. But you don’t know where it’s going; you don’t know… But there’s a process of just narrowing that happens when you fill in more lines. And you go back, and you alter them, and then something starts to take shape, which is a revelation, and you don’t know where it came from, although it came from me, it came from the writer. But the ideas themselves, the words, the juxtaposition of images, those things end up being reflected back, and I start to think about things I wasn’t thinking about before. And so it starts to take on a life of its own. And then it’s a negotiation between the song and the writer.
There are all kinds of things that come to bear on arriving at that state, of thinking something that you weren’t quite sure you thought. And it has to do with the relationship between words, the beauty of words, as I said, the juxtaposition of ideas. the logic that’s contained in syntax. Syntax brings its own logic to the world. And so you just work within those constraints.
Then, after a few minutes we spent talking about volcanology, Richard returned to the “reality/construct” part of the point I’d raised.
RS: When I’m writing a song, I don’t really distinguish between the two. It doesn’t strike me as an important distinction in a song, whether something actually happened or not.
The song you mentioned, There Goes Mavis, that’s really a case of a song beginning in one direction and then, by a kind of serendipity, having a couple of things happen in my daily life that informed the song, and transformed it. So, in that case, I did have a bit of a preconceived idea, but a kind of pedestrian one. These guys on a beach building a sand castle and that’s all it was. I had that melody and that chord progression, and when you have a melody and a chord progression, you want to make something of it, and so you start looking for words. And in that case, I had this idea of a beach in August, and some people building a sand castle and I remember I just got stuck, cos like I said, it just seemed kind of pedestrian.
The transient nature of anything you build on a beach, that was the trigger.
RS: Yes, the futility of all human endeavours kind of a song. And ok, did I really want to say that? So what, everyone knows that. And I really didn’t know what to do with it. Sure, I’d painted this picture of these guys at the beach building this sand castle with the ramparts and the moat and the water. And the driftwood flagpole. Then, my daughter, who was a little girl at the time, she reminded me that we had made a date to go out and buy a bird, a canary because the previous canary had kicked the bucket. So, we went out, we went to the pet store to get a canary, we came home, and we put the canary in the cage with the other canary, some lettuce and water, made sure the canary was happy, and I went back to my song. I had the beach, that whole scene I just told you about and then, all of a sudden, I was thinking about this canary. And the canary just entered the song. Now, had my daughter not knocked on the door and reminded me, had I not gone out and done something lovely with my daughter, walked out into the world and gotten the canary, that never would have happened. But then, once it did happen, all of a sudden there was a logic to the song that wasn’t there before. Ok, people at beach, building sand castle, canary, apparition. What’s that about, what’s happening? And then the process of writing the song happens, the process of trying to weave that into something, something that at least suggests some kind of logic or reality or meaning, beyond just the bare facts. But that’s not a case of me, in advance, thinking ok, I’m going to have these guys, and then a canary comes along, and then the message is this or that. No, it’s not that at all.
The song, as I’ve heard it this afternoon, reflects that disparity. Two things that don’t have an obvious connection.
RS: But there is a connection, the canary lands on the driftwood flagpole. All of a sudden, the canary’s there on the driftwood flagpole, and everything is different. Everything is different for the people in the song. “My God, what is that?” and that is kind of the point of the song, that disparity.
Is that something you’ve experienced quite frequently in your song writing? One idea starts and then another comes along, which appears to be separate, but suddenly there is a connection and, wow, there’s the song.
RS: Yes. And that is at once a wonderful thing and a terrifying thing because those sorts of positions, starting off in one place and ending up in another, it’s very difficult to control that and the brain wants to think that it knows what it’s doing in advance. And in a way, I have to give myself over to that ‘not knowing what’s going to happen next’ and hoping that something occurs to me or something from the world suggests itself. But that can be very unpredictable, but who would want predictability? To know when I’m sitting down to write a song that by God, that this is going to happen and I’m going to go from A to B and Bob’s your uncle.
So there’s a scary thought in your mind that it might not happen?
RS: It might not happen, yeah. Another example and this was the most shocking one for me, and I think even clearer than Mavis, is the song Transit. In that case, the melody preceded any of the words, the melody and the chord progression existed long before any words became attached to them. And when I went to record the record the song appears on, I played it for the producer, Larry Campbell, and he loved it. But it didn’t have any words. So, Larry says, just record it, just decide how long you want it to be, how many verses, how many choruses. I came up with what I thought was a good form. A, A, B, A, B, C, A, B, C. I think that’s the structure. So we recorded it with bass guitar, pedal steel, bouzouki, …. We went to town on it. The recording went on, and we recorded other things, and the clock was ticking, and we’re coming to the end of the sessions. And I started writing; I got as far as the end of the first C part, where it goes major. The part where they all go into the sun, the nun is changing the tyre at the side of the road and all that. After that, I had nothing, and it was the last day of recording. And Larry was, like, we’ve got another two hours, and you’ve gotta finish this. So, I looked at the lyrics I already had in which the nun, as I had conceived of her, was very much a secondary character, she was just a reason that I had put there to explain why there was a traffic jam. She had no other purpose, just a little local colour; it’s a nun by the side of a road, a little verisimilitude. I’m looking and thinking, where do I go with this? I need another A part, another B part. Then I need the big C part at the end. What do I do? So, I asked myself “Who is this nun? What’s she doing there?” And all of a sudden, I got this image of the prison that you see when going to Newark Airport. It’s right next to the airport, a horrible looking place, quite a serious prison, for quite serious offenders. And I thought she’s going there. So that’s a case of a song actually containing the kernel of its own resolution, but I didn’t plan it that way. Then I just, sort of, had to exploit it.
Did she have a choir van at the start?
RS: Yes, she did, St Agnes’ Choir. But what is that all about? In many ways it might have been just because the syllables sounded right, the metre was correct. Why would a nun be driving a van? What kind of a nun is she? She sounds very practical; she’s out there changing a tyre. So maybe it’s a choir of some kind. And there’s a funny little anecdote to end this, too. I knew once I had them all there in the prison, singing the hymn, I knew that I needed a hymn title, and I needed it to be 6 syllables. So, I said to Larry, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of American folk music, and also church music. I said, Larry, a very well-known hymn they might be singing in a prison choir, 6 syllables, go. And he looks at me quick as that, and he says, soft-ly-and-ten-der-ly, just like that. And I wrote it down, and it worked. So, these are the very complex ways that a song gets written. People hear finished things, and it all sounds as if it went from A to B in one fell swoop. Because that’s what you try to make it do. You go back and try to make it sound seamless.
As someone who hasn’t ever managed to write a song, I’m thinking that the real battle is getting the words to fit your structure, whereas the challenges you describe all happen before you can get to that.
RS: Well, that is a challenge too. The thing you have to do when writing a song is you have to make it sound effortless. The audience needs to feel led; they need to feel secure. Secure in the way the words move from one to the other, in the way the verses move. They need to feel secure about the melody; they need to feel secure about the tempo. Just the way the song is delivered. Because songs happen in real time, as you’re listening to a song you can’t go back and say, “What was that?” So they have to be clear. Well, maybe not all song, some songs can be not clear. But my songs have to be clear in some way. So, what you do is you go back, you edit it, so it’s got this polish. But also, words themselves, syllables, consonants, vowels, stresses. I spend a lot of time; once I’ve got the basic outline for the song, I spend a lot of time because it’s by far my favourite part of song writing. Which is to go back and make all of the dovetail joints between words and sentences seamless. So that it just sounds self-evident, natural. And that has to do with making it sound as people speak.
Basically, you have to love tinkering with words. There’s a lot of tinkering involved. There’s nothing I like more than having a bunch of words on a page that are presenting to me some kind of disorder, something that’s not clear, or out of place. And then trying to move them around, trying all the different ways you can re-phrase things so that it’s, absolutely, spot on. That’s a pleasure to me.
That’s probably more than enough for a very hefty piece, thank you. But I must say something about Next Best Western. It’s probably the song of yours I know best, since Phil Beer adopted it.
RS: His version is wonderful. Have you heard his recorded version? It’s beautiful.
I’m familiar with his live versions, both solo and with his band. And I just love the inflections he puts in.
RS: He gives it so many inflections that I wouldn’t give it, but they absolutely work. He’s a fine singer. Fiddle playing aside, musicianship aside, he’s a really good singer, his phrasing is among the best I’ve heard. It’s an example of what I’ve been talking about, an audience feeling like they’re being carried through the song by confident hands. He starts singing a song, and there’s no doubt who’s in charge, and that is the case with his version of my song. Absolutely beautiful.
I like the emphasis he gives it rhythmically. And I may actually start incorporating that myself.
Listening to you this afternoon, I’d say you already are.
RS: Yes, I did today, that was my first attempt. My versions are more (makes sound of even beat), and he gives it more of a push forward, which I like.
In some ways, it’s a very factual song, so, is this an exception and relates to real experience?
RS: That was real experience. It was written on a long drive from Michigan to New York, and you must go through Ohio to get from Michigan to New York. And you must drive 80East. Speaking of geology, (which we had been, off and on through the conversation) there’s the John McPhee book, Annals of the Former World. A tome, all about the geology of Route 80. He’s not a geologist, but he’s a great writer. Talk about someone who knows how to put sentences together. He wrote this fascinating book on the geology you encounter along Route 80. Highly recommended. It will take you the whole summer to read it. Anyway, I was on that road and, I think I wrote most of the song in the car as I drove. So, yes, that song is fairly autobiographical.
Richard has now finished his UK tour but be sure to keep an eye on his website for future dates or better still, sign up for his newsletter here.
More here: https://richardshindell.com
You can find out more about the next Costa Del Folk festival in Portugal in October here.
Press image credit: Radoslav Lorkovic