THOUGHTS ON SONG-MAKING AFTER 50 YEARS OF WRITING SONGS JUST OR THE PLEASURE AND HOPE OF IT
By Clay Clarkson
From the day I wrote my first real song at age 22, music has been a piece of my life. Once upon a time I felt certain that I could become a singer-songwriter. That feeling passed. The singer part eventually un-hyphenated itself, and now it’s enough for me to be only a songwriter. Not a performer. Just a songwriter.
Few will ever hear my songs—that’s just a fact of life—and yet I will keep right on writing. That popular and folksy definition of insanity comes to mind: “Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.” I don’t expect anything to change; I don’t expect anyone to record my songs. But I just keep on writing—doing the same thing over and over—not out of some latent insanity, but for my own manifest sanity.
Every conceived, crafted, and completed song that I write is, for me, like a soul- and sanity-affirming flag of occupation. A triumph. A victory. A win. Holding the hill of hope against what Paul calls the “forces of this darkness” that can threaten to overwhelm my spirit.
Songwriting, like any creative art, can be a soul-bruising battle. Steven Pressfield, in The War of Art, describes art as an act of war against resistance, which he names as “the enemy within.” Resistance isn’t just a passive force of our human nature, but an active thing that he says “aims to kill” the artistic impulse—the urge to create—that lives within the artist. The only real defense against resistance is to go on offense—to fight back, to forge ahead. That is true, of course, but I believe songwriting is more than that.
A song can be an act of principled rebellion, an effort to infiltrate the fragmenting chaos of living in this secular age with a small piece of redemptive, restorative order; a self-asserting shout into the constant noise. That shout—that song—can be a defiant declaration that words are more than just passing ephemeral things, and music more than just an accident of evolution. That shout of song is an acclamation that words and music don’t just mean things, they are things. Real things. Light in the darkness. Meaning in the madness. Every song a faith-born banner of goodness, truth, or beauty staked in the lugubrious landfill of life in this kairos, this moment of time.
And to paraphrase Descartes, Cogito ergo scribo. I think, therefore, I write. And in that writing, I create. I make a song.
“I believe that in some small way my personal ex nihilo creation can help make some sense of this fallen world.”
And in making a song I am, in the words of Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making, creating a “cultural artifact.” When I write out of what he calls a “call to faith” to create, I believe that in some small way my personal ex nihilo creation can help make some sense of this fallen world. But my song is more than just a faith-made message; it is also a thing of hope—an arrow arcing into the darkness of time and space aimed at eternity.
I create with the “assurance of things hoped for” that my musical artifact might pierce the veil to become part of what Crouch calls “the furniture of heaven.” There will be a culture to cultivate in that very real new world that believers are destined by faith to one day populate. I give life to a song in the hope that it might live forever there.
“A song is a sacrament by which we can engage with God.”
And in that sense, songwriting is a kind of act of incarnation. Hans Boersma says that “the entire cosmos is meant to serve as a sacrament.” It is a material embodiment of the transcendent nature of God by which we, as humans, can enter into and experience His presence. Music is also part of the Creator’s nature, but it is an immaterial part of the cosmos, permeating all creation without physical form. Writing a song harnesses that divine music of the heavenly spheres to shape and make it into a sacrament of form—of words, notes, melody, harmony, and rhythm. Not every song will have a spiritual purpose, but every song has a spiritual nature. It is an incarnation—an enfleshing of a part of the divine nature through hands, voice, and words. A song is a sacrament by which we can engage with God.
But maybe I’m overthinking what really is just a simple fact of my life. I don’t paint or sculpt. I don’t design and build things. I don’t house and feed the homeless. But I can write a song. It doesn’t matter if that songwriting is a learned skill, an inherent ability, or even a divine gift. And it doesn’t even matter if a song is beloved, bewildering, or even bemoaned. It matters that it is something I can do, something I can make, a simple fact of my life.
It is an act of faith. I think—I believe—therefore, I write. And with Barry Manilow, I can simply affirm: “I write the songs. I write the songs.”
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Clay Clarkson and his wife Sally (also an author) started Whole Heart Ministries, a nonprofit Christian ministry to help parents raise wholehearted children for Christ. After three decades of books, conferences, and online ministries, they’re still writing books for Christian parents and families (and all of our children are now writers and authors, too). As a nonfiction author, Clay is drawn to what he calls "expository narrative" that is biblical, conceptual, and creative. As a fiction writer, he’s drawn to the beauty of language and words, and the power of the Christian imagination. He’s perpetually caught in the "so many projects, so little time" endless loop as an author, writer, songwriter, book designer, and children's illustrated storybook creator. The writing of many books is not really endless, but the end is not yet in sight. Learn more about my ministry and books on WholeHeart.org and ClayClarkson.com.