TEARS FOR A DEPARTING MEMBER
Seattle-Bound Song of the Year Winner Takes DSA By Storm
By Buck Morgan
Just over a year ago, a fresh breath of energy and talent took hold of the Dallas Songwriters Association. From outward appearances, you could not have predicted the impact one of the DSA’s youngest members would have on an organization made up mainly of men and woman who have come to terms with being older than the President.
(President Obama, that is. Quite a few are still younger than DSA President Russell.)
Casey Graham has given the DSA a pulse of energy. He left most of us speechless with his 2011 Song of the Year winner, “Tears for Joanna.” I heard the song for the first time at a 1st Monday Song Swap, and I was on the Critique Panel the second time I heard it. I still recall the awed silence that followed both times. I think my first words from the panel were, “I love this song,” and I still do.
Song of the Year judge Zane Williams said about his top pick among the 2011 Monthly Critique Winners, “I don’t know whether it’s a made-up story or a real event in the life of the songwriter, and that means he did his job well… a poignant tune about an interesting character.”
(Find out more about singer/songwriter Zane Williams here: http://zanewilliamsmusic.com/fr_home.cfm )
As Song of the Year winner, Casey will receive a $350 certificate for an 8-hour recording session with DSA member/sponsor Jerialice Arsenault at River Sound studios in Castell, Texas, http://recordingtexas.com/ .
He also enjoys a year’s free membership in DSA and a cool DSA tee shirt.
He also enjoys a year’s free membership in DSA and a cool DSA tee shirt.
Like any pulse, there is a beginning and an end. Casey’s time with the DSA will end this fall, as he packs up his car and his talents and heads to Seattle as a graduate student of history at the University of Washington. His family is in Fort Worth, so we hope to see and hear from him again.
Recently, Casey responded to some questions:
DSA: How long have you been writing songs? Performing? Playing the guitar?
CG: I technically wrote my first songs my senior year of high school--seven years ago, now--usually just short, stupid talking blues about sports, songs that are long gone now. A couple of years later, in 2008, I started writing again when I first started performing. I would just lop on a couple of my original songs at the end of a long set of folk covers. It wasn't until I finished college in 2010, though, that I decided that songwriting was something I really wanted to do. So I generally say two years, although that's not the whole story.
The first time I played guitar and sang in front of people was December 2007, doing the "intermission" set for a local cover band in Waco at an Italian restaurant. I had, at that point, been playing guitar for about four years. My dad bought a guitar for his first mid-life crisis but failed terribly at it, and I eventually took it from him and learned myself.
DSA: Where did you learn to sing?
CG: I took piano lessons from the age of 5 to the age of about 10 or 11. Singing-wise, I was tone-deaf, so in the last year of my lessons my teacher started using some of the time to teach me how to breathe, project, and hear pitch properly. It fixed me, so to speak.
DSA: What kinds of songs move you? What kind of reaction in the listener do you strive for? What do you want her to feel?
CG: I don't subscribe to the notion that you have to be intensely personal in songwriting to be genuinely sincere. I think there's truth to be found outside of yourself, in what you see in the world around you, and those are the songs that move me most. Perhaps the greatest song I've ever heard is Phil Ochs's "The Crucifixion," which is a song about how American society builds up its heroes in order to revel in tearing them down. It's not an intense personal statement, but hell if it isn't the most moving song I've ever heard. I aspire (and usually fail, as we all do) to invoke that kind of emotion in a listener, to think about the world around them in a different way, culturally, sociologically, politically, what have you.
DSA: What are your main interests in life, and where does music fit in?
CG: Outside of work, music really is most of what I do. If I'm not writing it, I'm singing it or listening to it. I'm not a social person, so music is a way for me to keep myself company. Other than that, I just want to learn everything I possibly can about everything.
DSA: How do you see life for you in the next 10 years? Where will you be, what will you be doing, and what role will your music play?
CG: To be honest, I don't have the foggiest notion. Like most of my generation, I'm not sure what I want to do with my life and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Music will always play a huge role in my life; I'm always going to keep writing, and that will lead where it will lead. I wish I could give a longer answer.
DSA: Tell about 'Tears for Joanna.” When did you write it? What was on your mind? Who did you think of while you were writing it?
CG: "Tears for Joanna" came about very differently than most songs do, as it's a made-up story. The title entered my head in January of 2011 when I was just sitting at the Buon Giorno Coffee location in Fort Worth, before I moved to Dallas. When I sat down later in the weekend to flesh it out, I started to think about what that phrase could mean. I think I had recently read something somewhere about someone running away from home, so that was what was on my mind. I wanted to write a song that didn't consist of four-line verses, ABAB or AABB. The first couple of drafts were actually much longer than it is even now. I just started writing whole verses for every member of her family, trying to create the cultural conflict and environment that led to this poor girl's downfall. Eventually, the song pared itself down to the five verses there are now. My friend Alex Muller eventually helped to finish it, replacing lines where I was far too literal and re-writing a good portion of one of the verses.
DSA: Tell us about you brief time with the DSA. You've become one of our most steady members. Why? What motivates you?
CG: Basically, I don't know how to half-ass anything. I paid my dues and was going to actually be a part of it. I joined because I didn't really have any friends in Dallas or anything to do. DSA gave me a group of people with whom I could talk about songwriting, process, et cetera. My musical and emotional tastes are rather atypical, and I needed people to be honest with me about what my songs really said to them, because I couldn't use myself as an example. I didn't join DSA for gratification as a songwriter--taking compliments properly is a social convention that escapes me totally --but to get better as one.
DSA: What are the two or three things you would change about the DSA?
CG: I would get rid of a quantitative judging system. It's hard enough to explain in words why you think one song works better than another; I think it's even more difficult to do it in numbers. I also think the most important part of a song is its lyric--a song with a great lyric and a poor "structure" (whatever that is) is a better song than one with poor lyrics and great "structure" (again, whatever that means). But in the system as it is now, those songs score the same. Also, I would add the requirement that songs at monthly meetings need to be less than a year old. I think part of being a songwriters' organization is encouraging people to be writing now; it's also far more likely someone will be willing to change a new song based on others' comments than an old one.
I also think it's important to recognize where songwriting is going these days. People my age don't really care much about having a hit song recorded in Nashville. Songwriters of my generation want to sing their songs in front of listening audiences. So, if the DSA wants to expand and secure its place, long-term, it has to offer these people opportunities to play and perform and become better singer-songwriters, not just songwriters.
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