Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] This is the Nathans and Roncast, a podcast about the song craft and musicianship behind the songs we love. I'm Aaron Nathans, and today I want to explore one way that songwriters can give their songs a little extra punch. Part of the reason that James Keelahan's best songs stand up so well is not only that they're based on dramatic stories, they also contain killer plot twists. I'll list a few of them. Now, if you've listened to cold Missouri Waters, the song about the man Gulch Fire 75 years ago that we explored in the last two episodes, you know that the firefighter narrator is about to be consumed by the flames when he has an idea. Now I'm going to quote from the song sky turned red the slope was boiling 200 yards to safety death was 50 yards behind. I don't know why, I just thought it. I struck a match to waste high grass running out of time tried to tell them step into this fire I've set we can't make it this is the only chance you'll get but they cursed me ran for the rocks above instead I lay face down and prayed above the cold Missouri waters so the narrator saved his life by starting a fire of his own. Who would think to do that? A fire within a fire. Amazing, right?
[00:01:30] James Callahan does that in other songs, too. In Keery's piano, he builds up the piano as a heavenly instrument, especially in Kiri's hands. But during World War Two, Kiri and her family, who are japanese Canadians, are targeted for internment. The guard wants to take the piano for his own. After Kerry is sent to the internment camp, Keelahan writes, but Kerry had not left it there for me to take as plunder. She rolled it down onto the dock and on into the harbor. That old upright in Stranger's hands was a thought she couldn't bear, so she consigned it to the sea to settle the affair.
[00:02:10] You couldn't see that coming. It's a beautiful song, but it's also haunting. And when you listen to the lyrics, it's even more haunting. Or take his song McConville's. Set at a pub in Northern Ireland, this song has a double twist. It starts with the premise that at this bar they make their own whiskey, which can only be consumed on site. Tragedy ensues as a beloved customer dies in a work accident and the owner decides to auction off a bottle to raise money for the family. Rules, James Keelahan writes, were made for breaking, and that would have been a fine ending to a poignant story. But wait, he writes from the owner's point of view.
[00:02:51] As I was heading home tonight I passed the graveyard by I'm sure that I heard singing and silhouetted on the sky were Jimmy's friends and they were pouring something on his grave a little offering for young Jim to help him on his way so they didn't even drink it wild right now this is just one writer, but there are lots of great songs with plot twists. There's the Johnny Cash classic, a boy named sue, there's Memphis by Chuck Berry and cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin. Heck, there's even a great twist in Escape the pina colada song. I won't give it away. But if you haven't listened closely to the lyrics, it might be time to take a few minutes and do just that. I've experimented with plot twists in my own songwriting. Sometimes it works and sometimes it comes across as feeling a little heavy handed. So the key to writing a good plot twist is to make it feel natural. Maybe you gently mislead the listener to make the payoff hit a little harder. Sometimes it can be subtle or implied. It doesn't have to be like to reference a few movies, the crying game or the 6th sense. Think drive my car by the Beatles I've got no car and it's breaking my heart but I've got a driver and that's a start. Or it can be vague. To quote another Beatles song, norwegian wood and when I awoke I was alone this bird had flown so I lit a fire isn't it good? Norwegian wood now did he light a fire in the fireplace or did he just burn the place down? You dont have to ask that question of Sean Colvin and her co writer John Leventhal in Sunny came home. Time for a few small repairs. Indeed, its pretty clear that she torched the place.
[00:04:38] Now, not every song is a story song, and not every story song needs a twist. In fact, twists only work well when youre not expecting them. So use them lightly, but use them. It can elevate a story and give a song a real payoff.
[00:04:53] I'm Aaron Nathans, and thank you for listening to the Nathans and Roncast talk with you again soon. Peace.
[00:05:10] The far sea croons itself to restore.
