Song Club #19: Traveling

Life rushes up at us, and emotions swirl unpredictably when we’re traveling.

QUICK NOTE: Through May, I’m trying experiment where I share my weekly efforts to write a song a week—using these prompts. In doing this, my hope is to create a space where y’all might feel safe doing the same.

I’m looking for ways to make Song Club feel like an active and supportive community, as opposed to a broadcast. This is just one experiment in doing so. LMK how it feels?

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You may have heard, because I’ve been banging on about it in these newsletters, but I’m traveling in Australia at the moment. I arrived in the country Monday morning. Yesterday I flew from Brisbane to Newcastle (a small city on the coast about 3 hours from Sydney). Tomorrow I’ll drive south to Sydney, then jump on a train and head to a place called Bulli. I’ve been changing locations every couple of days. It’s a little bit thrilling and a little bit disorienting. It leaves me woozy and I kind of love it.

When it comes to songwriting, I think traveling, being in motion, moving from place to place is some of the most compelling and fertile lyrical territory. Life rushes up at us, and emotions swirl unpredictably. Our understanding of ourselves shifts.

Sufjan Steven’s ‘Chicago’ captures much of this rush and swirl. Particularly this set of lyrics:

We had our mindset

All things know, all things know

You had to find it

All things go, all things go

I drove to New York

In a van, with my friend

We slept in parking lots

I don't mind, I don't mind

The movement, the uncertainty, the excitement are all present here. And this is just one exploration of travel via song. There is so much to capture, to explore.

So, this week in our songwriting, I want us to explore traveling.

Keep going,

Lucy

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SONG PROVOCATIONS

Write a song where the location shifts from verse to verse

Explore location as device to express shifting perspectives. You might attempt a story where your protagonists feelings and thoughts about something change as their location changes. Or, you might use location merely as a backdrop.