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| re: The Psychology of Jim Steinman's Missing Songs | |
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Scaramouche 09:33 pm UTC 06/15/09 |
| In reply to: | The Psychology of Jim Steinman's Missing Songs - John_Galt 08:06 pm UTC 06/15/09 |
| Bloomin' heck that was a long post! LoL > Smeg wrote that...there are not new songs waiting to be > released... > Pudding countered that...I reckon he's got some (songs). Smeg thinks Jim doesn't have much new lurking (even though Jim's blogged to the contrary). Pudding thinks he does. Nothing wrong with either view, but I'm keeping the faith. > My thought is that the motivation and catalyst for truly > great art may come from growing or shifting. We've all > discovered newer perspectives and changed our minds about > things. I wouldn't be interested in the first girl I > "fell in love with" today... and my metaphysics grow a > little fuzzier every day. The problem for living legends > is that artistically they remain intellectually locked > into a previously awesome state while personally they grow > or change into someone else. The result is that they > literally have to stop writing or rip off who they once > were in order to be consistent with the art they > understand to be great and that others expect from them. > > This is a particularly difficult problem because it's hard > to simply say, "I was the Bat Out of Hell guy, but now I'm > going to go in a different direction more in touch with > who I am today and do great and important work allowing > who I am to inform that work." That's hard because most > artists have the benefit of who they were and who they > are. Anyone who tries to shut out the past as a > songwriter operates from a decided disadvantage, I think. I'm confused. LoL. I think (in regards writing) Jim still thinks he's an 18 year old, or at least thinks he thinks like a teenager (does anyone think my thinking makes sense)? LoL > As limited support for my speculation and hope for the > future, I'll say that Jim's two best recent works are What > Part of My Body Hurts the Most and We're Still the > Children We Once Were... and they are both songs that seem > to come from a different place than the Steinman tunes > we've all grown to love. That's particularly true of > WStCWOW. 'Body...' harks back, for me, to Jim's biggest hits of the 80's & 90's (Eclipse, Anything For Love, All Coming Back). It's one of his very best and probably my fave (and I haven't even heard the full studio production)! Be interesting to know when he actually wrote it. 'Children' does come from a slightly different place than the big OTT hits, but still Steinman. I get the same vibe from listening to 'Everything Is Permitted' (and I think this should be in the Bat musical as well). > I'd love to hear other people's thoughts or insights into > why Jim hasn't been able to match the prolific output we > saw during his college years and the late 1970s and early > 1980s. Well he's 'been there & done it' many times, which kinda takes the edge off? He's older (you get tired quicker). He's had health issues. The DOTV debacle must have made him think 'fuck it' for a while?. Having said that we don't actually know Jim hasn't been prolific. For the last three years or so he's been working exclusively on the Bat musical. Bear in mind he seems to be the main/only creative force at the moment (book, music, lyrics, merchandise etc etc) and therefore the workload must be huge (at least the work of putting together 2-3 separate albums, and then some). Jim says the Bat musical script is the greatest thing he's ever written, so I'll gladly keep the faith! | |
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