REWIND: How do you solve writer’s block? Listen to songs about it

Royce da 5'9

Royce da 5’9, courtesy.

Bad news: I am not doing another Halloween Month. I know, I know, I’m sad too. But after covering basically every angle of music last October, I’m running out of mountains to climb. And I need to save five songs until the last column of the month because I am doing at least one Halloween column.

I love Halloween music. And the holiday itself. I make no apologies.

Unfortunately, that means I need to come up with a column topic when all I want to listen to is the songs I’ve put in October columns in the past. So, uh… hm. Well I guess I could… no, no, that’s horrorcore. I guess I could do fall songs and… shoot, no, I did that last year.

You know what? There are like a hundred songs out there about writer’s block for when musicians get in this situation, so let’s listen to five of the best of those while I figure this out. [Gokhman note: I immediately know there’s one Willis is going to miss that I love. It’s from this century, and he doesn’t much listen to music from this century. See if you can spot it].



Royce da 5’9 featuring Eminem — “Writer’s Block”

It pains me to actually like this song since Royce da 5’9 is such a terrible rap name. It’s down there with Lil Baby on the Big List of What Were You Thinking. It also pains me to like a song with Eminem on it because I’m not a fan. But this is good!

In fact, in this case I’ll give credit to Eminem; Mr. da 5’9 abandons the writer’s block premise after the first verse in favor of the old chestnut “Look how rich I am!” and Marshall is the one who actually read the memo and brings it back around. Good for him. There’s always gotta be someone on every project to guide it back on track when it strays.



E SENS — “Writer’s Block”

I know how boring peeks behind the curtain are—nobody cares about process— but when I’m doing these columns, it’s almost always songs I already know and like. I realize that sounds absurd since I’ve been doing this for almost four years, but the part of the brain most people use on, like, social skills, or marketable talents, or remembering where they left their shoes, is instead dedicated in my brain to songs and “The Simpsons” references; things like that.

That said, this week I went outside the box. I fired up Spotify, did a search for “writer’s block” and listened to some stuff. I had a few in mind but thought I could expand my boundaries.

What this long-winded explanation is leading to is that I hadn’t previously heard South Korean rapper E SENS [Gokhman note: I did!] until I found this cut from his debut album! You should check his stuff out. Unless he’s already super famous and nobody told me about him, in which case: You jerks.


Evergreen Terrace — “Mad World”

Remember the last entry where I said most of my brain is taken up by songs and “The Simpsons” references? So of course I knew about a band called Evergreen Terrace. I mean, come on. There’s not a long list; pretty much just them, Fall Out Boy and Okilly Dokilly.

Anyway, this song is not about writer’s block. It’s from their 2000 album of covers called Writer’s Block, which is really pretty clever naming. In addition to this Tears for Fears cover, it includes Smashing Pumpkins’ “Zero,” U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and The Offspring’s “The Kids Aren’t All Right.”

Really, it reminds me of my Plan B: Just steal one of Tony Hicks’ columns and hope nobody notices.



Fatlip — “Writer’s Block”

This is more my style. It’s half Fatlip complaining about people asking for his new album even though he’s got writer’s block, and half padding where he just describes what writer’s block is, which is 100-percent my move. If the next entry is just a long description of the condition, you’ll know this column’s word count was coming in short.

Also I absolutely love the line, “Coulda been a legend like Big and ‘Pac/ But I caught a bad case of writer’s block.” Same, dude. Same.


MercyMe — “3:42 AM (Writer’s Block)”

This is another new find from Spotify, but I had to include it because the first verse is such a perfect explanation of the genesis of this column: “3:41 a.m., make that 3:42/ Time just keeps rolling on while I’m here stuck like glue/ So many things cross my mind/ But nothing stays awhile, so frustrating/ I just wanna say something worthwhile, speak through me.”

Basically, I wanted to avoid that because 3:42 a.m. is the middle of the night and I’m a man who values his sleep. I could either keep struggling, or I could lampshade it and go from there. And… well, you just read my choice.



Bell X1 — “My First Born For a Song”

I love it. This is the first appearance (above) of a worship song in Willis’ column. But no, that’s not my contribution. U2 gets a mention above, but that, too, is not from me. Instead, I’m going with this song about writer’s block—that doesn’t actually have “writer’s block” in the name of the song—by the other Irish band named for an American military airplane.

Bell X1 is a terrific, vastly under-appreciated band (in the U.S., at least), and this song is from its breakthrough 2005 album, Flock. I doubt singer and chief songwriter Paul Noonan has ever traded a child for sheet music or bar napkin with lyric ideas scratched into it. But if nothing else, it’s a good threat to keep in his pocket if his kid doesn’t clean his or her room. [Oh yeah; Gokhman note].

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.

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