Tuned in

Rough Draft examines inspiration

by David Gérard

SONGS IN THE ROUGH: ROCK'S GREATEST SONGS IN ROUGH-DRAFT FORM. By Stephen Bishop. Published by St. Martin's Press, 142 pages, $27.95.

There's a telling moment in Bring On the Night, Michael Apted's documentary on Sting's foray into jazz. Working with the best and brightest of the genre was a bold gesture, but from early on in the film it's obvious Sting feels out of his depth and is desperately trying to fit into the jazzmen's milieu. During one jam session, saxist Branford Marsalis offers Sting a shot: if he wants to hang with the big boys, all he has to do is perform one song for the band. Which tune? None other than that standard, "Meet the Flintstones."

I recount this anecdote to answer skeptics who'd flinch at its inclusion in a "greatest songs" book, for indeed the theme from The Flintstones shares space with such chestnuts as "Heartbreak Hotel," "Penny Lane," and "Purple Haze." Such diversity makes singer/songwriter Stephen Bishop's Songs in the Rough a refreshing and welcome delight. The book combines rough drafts of some of music's best tunes with insightful, often hilarious, observations made by their writers. And Bishop pays homage to songwriting by delving into the process and propounding theories about its nature.

Bishop does not offer any lengthy academic discourse concerning melody, chord structure, or syntax. Instead, he allows his subjects to reveal their own modes of writing and their sources of inspiration. We learn from Mae Boron Axton that "Heartbreak Hotel" was inspired by a news clipping of a white-collar suicide, and that Elvis's initial reaction was, "That's the worst song title I've ever heard!" Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" was originally titled "God Blessed America"; his daughter tells us the song was a rebuttal to the anthem Kate Smith made famous. Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody To Love" was first called "Mind Full of Bread" -- which would have exemplified the psychedelia of Surrealistic Pillow, the album on which it appeared. The rough draft of Dean Pitchford's "Fame" uncovers lyrics that spoke of insecurity and disenfranchisement, without its final burst of bravado: "You don't really know me/You think I'm someone else/Someone not as fine as you are/Someone who will never go far."

Throughout Songs in the Rough you come across such revelations and share Bishop's appreciation of the collectors'-item quality of some of the treasures the book reproduces: the Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine" scribbled on the inside of a torn envelope; the appropriately murky, ink-smeared draft to Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash"; the chorus to the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" hastily jotted on an airline boarding pass; and so on. Seeing the lyrics to these hits in the penmanship of their authors limns a more personal identity for the songs, casting new light on their intentions. On paper, Phil Collins's draft for "One More Night" reads like a prisoner's love letter. Graham Nash's "Chicago" comes across as a bitter protest poem, not an idealistic call to activism.

A few minor bones of contention. Bishop divides the book into four sections: "In the Beginning," "Sunshine Days," "Peaceful Feelings," and "The MTV Years," yet the songs follow no chronological order, and so the sections seem like an afterthought, without providing any sense of continuity. Worse, in an act of conceit, Bishop gives us the draft to his own "classic," "On and On." And in the "The MTV Years," the dreck he dredges up includes even Weird Al Yankovic's parody of the Knack, "My Bolonga." Still, Songs in the Rough makes for a fun and informative read, and it rekindles one's respect for a medium that, with the saturation of PCs and text-writing software, is quickly fading into obsolescence.