Wrestling With Writer’s Block ft Susan Cattaneo
Stevie: [00:00:00] Susan Catteneo welcome to the show. It is a pleasure to speak with you today.
Susan: Thank you, Stevie
Stevie: You've had quite an . Interesting career in terms of your songwriting profession spending 20 years at Berkeley college of music as a songwriting professor recently. Just leaving Berkeley college of music. And congratulations for such a wondrous career there. How are you feeling about leaving that career?
Susan: The short answer is that I'm feeling really great. It was the right time for me. I feel like I did it for 20 years. I'm good. I did
Stevie: Paid my dues?
Susan: Well, not even that. I loved working with the students but there's nothing like a good pandemic to make you examine what you want to do with your life going forward. I've always felt really comfortable in both the educator world and the performing artist world. And recent years I felt this real yearning and desire to embrace the artist world completely. So I was like, well, it's now or never. I just really want to do music full-time. I'm still teaching online, so I'm still [00:01:00] teaching at Berkeley but I'm just not going in on campus anymore it's awesome because I can travel and I can tour and still teach and it's been wonderful.
Stevie: Do you think it would have been hard to give up teaching completely obviously you want to pursue your own artistry full time, but it sounds like, teaching has been a joy for you to do.
Susan: It has, I consider myself like, I'm a songwriting geek. Like I love songs. I love talking about songs. I love exploring why they're magical, that's a skill I've honed and developed as an educator. A lot of people will be like, well, how do songs happen? They're like, if it's magical it, the muse just comes and then it, blah. And I'm able to explain and encode the magic and communicate it to other people. And I think that that's a skill that I really treasure that I have, so I teach outside of Berkeley and I do workshops, and that is still keeping my pinky toe in the swimming pool of teaching. Because I love working with [00:02:00] artists I probably am never not going to teach in some form
Stevie: I have never taught at that kind of level about anything. I coached sports at one point. But I hear from people that you learn so much as a teacher, after 20 years, do you still feel that you are, learning things from students?
Susan: Oh, a hundred percent. It's this amazing virtuous circle, as opposed to a vicious circle in the sense that certainly I have outward life experience in the music industry. And so, things about touring and DIY, as a singer songwriter, I can bring that experience into the classroom, which I think is helpful. But having the students hearing this music that's . Evolved in the pop format, as far as laying tracks and the way that music is being built these days, it's really different. So I'm learning from my students as well. And I think the coolest part is that if ever I come up with songwriting tool or a technique, I will try it first for myself.
And I think [00:03:00] that that's really cool because I can be like, oh, this was my experience doing it. What is your experience? It creates a more dynamic relationship between teacher and students. So it's not just me being like I'm talking to you on high, going to tell you all my experience. It's more of a conversation and a creative dynamics between the student and the teacher, which I love.
Stevie: Something you mentioned or you touched on there a lot of young producers who are coming up now in terms of the way they might teach songwriting. Ryan Tedder, I think on his monthly course, one of the tips that I think he gives is to keep. DAW open and digital audio workspace, open, put a drumbeat down and noodle over it. Now that obviously is relatively new technology. I'm old school, like I'm, pen and paper and giving my guitar. Have you switched to that method or do you still go with the instrument first?
Susan: Well, I think it's important to try it all. So yes, I've definitely written from a DAW. The cool thing about that, we call top-line writing over it. So you create the track, the bed and then you lay the [00:04:00] vocal over it. sometimes it has to do with creating phonic sounds so you're just singing gobbledygook and then the word emerge, which is totally different than coming up with a hook . And approaching it from an intellectual What I love about top-line writing is the fact that, a lot of people, they play their guitar or they play their piano and they sit down with their instrument and they do the same thing. They're like play their little chord structure and they're in a rut musically. And I think that writing from a track, writing from drums up, just introduces a whole different level of thinking about poly rhythms, thinking about, how do you break up the drum? What kind of cool, rhythmic things can you do with your lyric? And if you think about what music makes you feel, certainly that style of pop music, it's a lot about how your body feels, how it makes you move. And how, it's not like in the singer songwriter vein. So starting with drums is a really good idea because you're going [00:05:00] to get something that, the body's . Involved. You're feeling the groove you want to shake your head and, you know,
Stevie: That's interesting, and you're absolutely right. I it forces you to think in a different way, right? You mentioned being stuck in a rut so one of the things that, we spoke about is overcoming writer's block in your illustrious many, many decades. Sorry, not that many decades. I don't mean to age you prematurely. Um, and in your illustrious career, um, yes.
In your career, I'm sure you've come across or felt writer's block or does one feel writer's block or does it is one subject to it? I'm not sure what the correct verb use is there. How have you overcome writer's block yourself and I assume this obviously comes up in your teaching and how to get out of that rut with your students.
Susan: Well, it's funny because a few years ago I thought I've encountered writer's block before. And I was like, huh, why is this happening? There are lots of different kinds of writer's block, but , one of them in particular is what I call like 'Second Verse Hell'.
So it means like you write a verse, and then you write a chorus and you're like, [00:06:00] I'm done. I think that's it. It's like a minute, 10, second song. It's done. It's good. And you just can't move forward beyond that. And I was like, why does that happen? What goes on there? I had this idea that I'm going to make it my quest and my mission to come up with as many different ways to unblock writer's block. So for example, second verse hell sometimes the reason why that happens is because there is something about the verse and the chorus that feel like they're too similar. Either it's a lyric thing where maybe you have the lyrics in the verse are usually ones that talk about story, they show imagery, they evolve the story development. And then the chorus, its job lyrically is to make an overarching statement about what you just saw in the verse. And sometimes those two things are muddy. So you'll have visual stuff in your verse, plus statement lines in your verse, and then you'll have visual stuff in your chorus, plus [00:07:00] statement lines in your chorus.
And sometimes when you separate those out, some of the visual stuff can actually go into verse two, that can be verse two material. Another thing that happens with second verse hell is sometimes , the melody can be the same. So you'll come up with some cool, little. "oh" and that you'll use that "oh" in your verse. And then you'd be like, I'll put it in the chorus. "Oh" there it is. In the chorus. And you're visiting the same land melodically it's revealing the big surprise. Sometimes changing up the melody in either the verse or the chorus can help you move forward. That's just one example, but I think I have something like 60 different techniques and tools that you can use to unbreak writer's block.
Stevie: Have you written a book called Second Verse Hell?
Susan: I haven't, I haven't
Stevie: You should! I
Yeah, no I haven't yet
Well, there you go. That's your task for this coming year. And next year, when I interview, you will be promoting.
Susan: There [00:08:00] you go!.
Stevie: so happy I could help.
I I've certainly come across that second verse hell myself and what you mentioned there about something being a little too similar definitely happened to me. I certainly find my personal hell is, is bridge hell, cause you don't want to throw in a bridge for the sake of throwing in a bridge. Yeah. It needs to obviously do something, but I just I'm like, oh, but I was having so much fun with the chorus. The chorus is So much fun. Why do I want to bring it down? Or, because often for me it tends to go into like a minor.
Susan: Well, it's funny. So I love bridges but I didn't love bridges initially when I first started writing songs because you worked so hard on the verses and the chorus, and you're like, oh God, now I have to do another section. Like, it's just it's work. But there are many different kinds of bridges that you can write Yeah, there, there probably like five standard moves that bridges do. And sometimes they go from a really small . Vision to a larger statement about humanity. And other times, you're answering the questions of who, what, where, when, why and how. And so [00:09:00] if you look at your verses in your course, and you're like, okay, what does the listener know?
And what is new information that I could reveal in this bridge? And then, other times the bridge can be like the climax of the song. So it can be suddenly there's a knock on the door and there you are. And you say, I love you. And you're like, oh yay. And whatever. One of the things that I do for bridges actually is I'll have my students write five bridges for one song.
Stevie: Oh, god. That's already giving me anxiety and I don't have to do it.
Susan: No. What's so great about that is that they'll be like, oh, there isn't just one answer. That's the most important thing. Like there, isn't just one solution, which I think is in general, like a songwriting rule there isn't just one answer. It can be anything. When they write five bridges, they'll find two out of the five, three they like, oh, I don't like those at all, but these two are really good. Huh. Cool. For me, I did [00:10:00] that personally as a songwriter and that helped me get over the fear of writing bridges. And when I'm writing a song, it's almost like, Hmm, okay. Now, now what do I have to say? It's a new opportunity to say something more. So I like that reason.
Sorry to make you.
Stevie: No, no, that's fair. I think I needed that kick up the backside. Thank you so much.
When I'm thinking about you teaching one thing that came into my head was thinking about some songwriters who are quite prolific in writing hits. And perception is that they have a formula. There is some sort of magic formula that these songwriters have to write these hits very consistently. Ed Sheeran for instance, or do you know Gary Barlow?
Susan: yeah, Sure.
Stevie: He's just a hit making machine that man. And I look at them and I'm like how are they doing it every time? The mind literally boggles. Do you find sometimes that your students aspiring to that.
Susan: Oh, yeah. All the time.
Stevie: All the [00:11:00] time? Okay. That's always the goal, is it?
Susan: Unfortunately that is the goal, because with shows, like, American idol and the voice you have like it's a get rich, quick scheme. It's kind of sad for me a little bit cause you have these young people and they feel like, oh my gosh, if I'm not a success by the time I'm 25, my career, my life is over as a musician. there is that pressure, to create. But it's interesting, certainly there are people who just naturally are doing something sonically that is very appealing. I don't know that there's some innate talent, obviously in doing that. But I also, frankly know, former students of mine who've gone to Nashville or New York or LA and they've studied their craft. So they've studied like what is on the radio? What are people doing? What is the tempo that these songs are at?
That's even a great place to start. If you want to write a song like Bruno Mars go and listen to Bruno Mars, what is he doing in [00:12:00] his songs? And initially it would be like, you're copying Bruno Mars obviously, but eventually you find your own artistic style in. For me, especially that style, that once again, pop style music, it's very much about tempo and feel. So it's how do you create that tempo and feel?
I think someone like Billy Eilish has done a really great job of obviously creating a sound that's purely hers and yet using influences that can be found in the more kind of standard pop world.
Right. You know, the drum groove behind bad guy that's a really hip groovy drum groove. Once, again, like starting with drums might be the answer for pop music, at least pop music success
Stevie: You talk about, craft the craft of songwriting so in terms of teaching, do you have to kind of kick that, Hey, right. Let's get this "number one, like ba ba ba" out of your head and focus on the craft?
Susan: The true answer to that is probably a little bit of both. I spent a lot of time writing in [00:13:00] Nashville and there is a certain structure that you write in when you're writing for other artists that's specifically work driven.
Like this is what we have to do, in country music, you know, we have to put a truck in it. We have to put
Stevie: A dog some whiskey, I've got to get drunk somewhere.
Susan: Exactly! Like the David Allen Ko song and there's kind of a certain construct that you have to write in that's different than, don't know that there's a lot of, I'm sure there's heart in that kind of writing. I'm not saying there isn't heart, but it's not necessarily, authentic from an artist point of view. I believe that for me, like the best songs have craft in them, but they start from a very authentic place, authentic feel. Sometimes, you know, you'll hear a song and the craft is evident in it. Like, "oh, that's clever." the writing is obvious. Then there are other songs that I feel come from a certain place that's more heart driven and connect more to those.
Stevie: As do I. Your writing, I'm sure [00:14:00] you've heard this before, very much got some Gretchen Peters vibes.
Susan: Oh yeah. I love her. Thank you
Stevie: Great, and in terms of your own writing after decades, not, not many, not hundreds, after, the decades that you've spent doing this, your songwriting craft is so refined and developed. You are very prolific at using a metaphor. Obviously a metaphor is so powerful, but would you mind telling me a little bit about how you feel about using metaphors in your songs?
Susan: During the pandemic, I didn't write for the first three months of March, April and May. Which is really unusual for me, I'm pretty prolific as a songwriter. I'm pretty inspired by the world, which is really awesome, but when the pandemic hit, I felt very muted. I felt very frightened and worried and every time a creative idea would come my way. I think, nah, I don't really feel like writing. And I thought, well, gosh, maybe I'm done writing. Maybe I'm done. Maybe I'm done song writing. Oh my God. Really? Crisis of faith.
Then I started writing again [00:15:00] in may and because I was by myself the songs had a really intimate quality to them. They were really, really personal. So I wanted to write about I'm, I'm been married to my husband for 31 years, which is our 30 years, which is awesome.
Stevie: Congratulations.
Susan: Thank you. But we come at our relationship from really different places. His parents are still married. They're still together. My parents are divorced and are not together. And that creates a very different expectation about life going forward for him. Divorce is really not even in his vocabulary. And for me, it's very much a part of mine. So I wanted to write a song about this because I thought it was really interesting, our different approaches to what a happy ever after meant.
And I thought, oh, happy ever after that's obviously a fairy tale. so I started researching fairytales because that's what I do sometimes [00:16:00] that's my inspiration. That's like a writer's block tip by the way, start researching something and you'll come up with some ideas. so I started researching fairytales and I came upon the one four and 20 blackbirds, four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie.
Right. I then started to think about, well, I wanted to write a song with that as the metaphor. And what's great about doing metaphor writing is that you don't have to necessarily write about daily life. The metaphor can be the thing. It's almost like the metaphor is the lens that you see the song through. So instead of it being like, "you came in and , I was doing the dishes and you were making hamburgers" do you know what I mean? Like, it's not that specific. The metaphor suddenly becomes world that you live in. started researching, first of all, four and 20 blackbirds.
I was like, oh, okay, what are Blackbird? What do they mean? What do they symbolic of? And blackbirds are symbolic of death and change and [00:17:00] mystery and magic. And I thought that was really cool. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to write the song about foreign 20 blackbirds. And I went and I found a lot of different other fairytales that would fit in with this theme.
So in the song I have the dish running away with the spoon cause I was like, oh, that feels like two people running off together. Right. opposed to my feeling of being reluctant to do that. Cause I'm afraid cause it could lead to divorce, you know? So it's this wonderful balance between what the real story is and what the images are that you can put in a song.
So I wrote this song blackbirds and what's really cool about it is for me, at least, is that it has like, there's like a pocket full of size, which was like a pocket full. That was also from the for and twenty blackbirds poem and, oh yeah, this is like a little side thing. So at one point I went off in my writing and I was like, this is [00:18:00] going to be so cool. I'm going to have a whole section that is going to be all about the blackbirds. I'm going to name all the blackbirds. There was like one for sadness and one for shame and one for grief. This for this and one thing's for certain, like it was, so it was clever. It was very clever. .
And when I wrote it, I was so pleased with myself that I was like, whatever happens that section has to stay, got to keep that, got to keep that section. So I kept trying, trying to write, trying to write it was so overwritten. I hated the song. And then I just woke up one day and I was like, you know what? I am going to throw the baby out with that bath water.
So I was like, I'm going to get rid of the section that I love so much. And for some reason, in getting rid of the section that I was so emotionally attached to freed me up to actually finish the song. That's another writer's block tip sometimes you have to throw out the thing that [00:19:00] you love most about your song, because that might be the thing that's blocking you from finishing it.
So I wrote this song blackbirds and I ended up clearing out three quarters of the lyrics and just giving it space. And there's a section in the song where I do this, who, which was not in there, but because I cleared out all the lyric, I had this time to do this kind of vocal thing that felt like. Uh, a vocal representation of what a Blackbird would sound like.
And it gave, gave me like a spooky mystery, magic death, symbolic feeling to it, so that was kind of cool that that came around again.
Stevie: wow I'm. So in awe, that's such an interesting way to look at those two views on marriage and a life together with somebody and using so like different metaphors within the same theme to tell that story.
Susan, you have your new album coming out, April 8th, which is wonderful. Congratulations, your pandemic album[00:20:00] your pandemic LP. I'm wondering if there are any other alliterations I can use there. It was interesting what you said about having that writer's block during that time cause I did too. I haven't come out of it. I'm stuck in that, place of what is it I can say that is of any importance while all of this stuff is going on. How did you handle that 'cause , I assume this was somewhat universal to many people.
Susan: Oh yeah. So the song that kind of started it for me was... Well, so first of all, in may, friend of mine asked me to join this songwriting group so I was suddenly under the gun to write a song for this group. And when you're thinking about that, the idea of community at a time when I was feeling so isolated was really helpful to me.
The idea of being with a group of other songwriters and having that like, oh, I want to be good. Right. So, so that kinda got me out of my head a little bit. I was like, oh shoot, I have to write a song[00:21:00] and, another thing that I had read, there was this thing on like self-help, and, and they were like, you know, find a picture of when you were little, the normal thing that you would do when you find a picture of you when you're little is you're like, what could me, as the grownup person tell this little person that I'm looking at in this picture?
Like, what big lessons have I learned? It'd be like, you know, oh, you know, when you're 15, don't get in the car with, with whoever and avoid tequila. Cause you'll get sick, you know, whatever.
Oh, that's a true story, but that's where another day. But instead the article was like, instead of thinking about what you could teach, that little person, what could that little person teach you?
And I don't know why I found that so compelling. So I found this picture of myself that from. Seven. And [00:22:00] I think it's Easter cause I'm wearing a very fancy dress and an Easter hat. And I just look so confident and brave and happy and you're at that age where it doesn't matter, you feel like dancing, you feel like singing and you feel very expressive without all of the, what are people gonna think of me?
You don't think that at that age. And that led me to write a song, which actually is the last song on my album, which is called All Is Quiet, it's called Follow. And it's about following your intuition. And I wrote it top-line it. So I wrote it with a track first and let my voice do what I, what it wanted to do.
And that for me was. The start of feeling better about creating, because I suddenly realized, oh my gosh, I'm a creative person. And I'm going to make stuff. Whether people are listening or not [00:23:00] listening, I'm just going to make stuff. Cause I really like making stuff. That kind of gave me a freedom to express myself because I didn't have this pressure of like, oh, I have to make it.
And then I'm going to present it and then I'm going to gig out with it. . And then people are going to like it maybe in the hopefully, you know, like, Ooh baby, maybe , I'm just gonna make stuff in my house. that gave me a certain wind in my sails feel where I was like, okay, I'm gonna make some songs and if I never release them that's going to be okay. You know, luckily, thankfully, I ended up getting enough songs that I was like, oh, I'm actually, I'm going to record them. And so I recorded remotely. I would create my track, my vocal send it to my producer in Connecticut. He had my friend, Kevin Berry on guitar and the two of them would create the foundation based on my guitar track. And then we would send it to Duke Levine at his house and he would put his guitar track on it. Then they'd send it back to me. And then I would put on my final vocal and harmonies. So it [00:24:00] was such a weird recording process because normally you're in the room and you can , feel the energy and the vibe and things can evolve. And this was not like that. This was everyone making their own little artistic piece in their own little space and that creating a sound
Stevie: Yeah, and that's become normalized now.
Susan: Yeah. I know that certainly sending tracks is something that was happening even pre pandemic, but for me, the idea of not being in the same space with people was weird.
But I love the songs. I love the way they came out. My other album was called the hammer and the heart. It was a double album. It was so big. It had 41 musicians on it. I produced it myself. I recorded it all over the place. It was like this huge imagined circus translated to music.
And one side is called the hammer and that's the rock side and the other one's called the heart and that's the acoustic side. after [00:25:00] that experience, I was like, I don't care. This album is going to be small and it's going to be quiet and it's going to be simple. So I had already thought of doing the idea of this album even before the pandemic, and then the pandemic happened. It was like, well, things are all is quiet. So what emerges out of that?
Stevie: Indeed, just going back to the song you mentioned Follow, you said imagining your younger self. Please share that photo with me.
Susan: I totally will. Yeah.
Stevie: But I think about that photo and taking that lesson from your younger self to go, you know what cast off these societal expectations of life should look like what all of these things should look like, because you've been told and like, fuck the patriarchy and all that stuff, do you think that that is possibly where or the ideation for leaving a career in academia in terms of following your own inner child to the thing that gives you joy in terms of [00:26:00] creating songs?
Susan: Definitely. Yes. I hadn't actually thought about that until you just said it, but I think totally. Yes. I'm not as afraid or ashamed to embarrass to say, I am not in my twenties. I have earned the experience that I have, and it has led me to this point in my life to these songs that I could only write at this point in my age. So I'm in my fifties, I'm not embarrassed to say that in a world where it is embarrassing to say that. So there's also something of me that feels like I'm not done yet. I still have a voice. I still have valid things to say in the world. Certainly as a woman, as a non 20 year old woman, there's something really important in that and I almost feel like I'm proudly standing in my age, as someone who has experienced as someone who has developed their craft and as someone who [00:27:00] is not . Ashamed to say that I'm not invisible in the world.
And that's something that also came out for me is that, normally, I don't know as a woman, as the kind of woman that I am I'm always apologizing. I'm always like, oh, you know, I really, I like the songs that I wrote. Would you please listen to them?
I'm like, screw that. You know, I think that's something that the pandemic gave me was this level of like, no, I have a voice. I have something to say. I believe in this music, I believe in these songs and you should hear them because they're good and I'm proud of them. And that's something I would definitely not have said before. I would have been humble, humble, and don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. I'm proud of what I made and, I'm proud to show it to the
world.
Stevie: Well, I am proud of you. Go go. You well done. That is fantastic. And I'm so glad that you want to talk about it. If ever I interview older women or [00:28:00] older people, or later in their career, sometimes it can be embarrassing to talk about cause the age-ism that they experience
Susan: it's terrible.
Stevie: it's horrendous. You have so many stories that are not be being told because you're considered too old. It's the age old thing of the sages who were of ignored because they're older or whatever
Susan: And I understand. I have a lot of students who became famous during the pandemic in the pandemic, which is amazing and they're wonderful and I'm so happy for them. And there is enough, they have like huge fan bases. So I understand that the horizon that I am looking at is not an unlimited horizon. I understand that, I understand that my fan base is going to be smaller. But I still think that there is room enough in the world for all voices to be heard. There are more people maybe that are going to like , the 22 year old, you know, fabulous genius talent, but there are still people that are going to like people of different ages if people in their thirties, people in their forties
Stevie: People want to hear [00:29:00] their stories and see themselves reflected back to them. And thinking about women in general, over the age of, what 35 just not hearing songs that represent them in it.
Susan: I agree.
Stevie: And you've like cornered. You've honed in on this, this audience, like it's yours, Susan, it's yours for the taking. You heard it here. First. All is quiet is April 8th of this year. And I'm so excited for you. And where is there a plant tour? What are, what are the plans?
Susan: Well, I'd love to tour., I have a few shows booked locally. I also have a really fabulous duo that we created during the pandemic that, it's called Honest Mechanic. And so we have a bunch of shows as Honest Mechanic, which is like an indie pop sound. It's very cool.
I'm going to be careful about what I do that's the other difference, like pre pandemic, I was running around like a chicken with my head off, touring as much as possible, getting good at, I do got to do this, got to [00:30:00] do that. And now that I've had an opportunity to reflect on that, , I really want to pick and choose where I perform.
So there isn't so much of the running around feeling, I don't want that anymore, I'll be touring in Europe. I think also, which I'm really excited about so you have to look on my, on my site and find that
Stevie: well, Susan, it has been such a joy and a pleasure and, uh, quite an education quite honestly, uh, talking with you today.
Susan: Well, Stevie, Thank you so much. I really, really love your podcast.
Stevie: you. That means a lot to me. Thank you very much I'm. So I'm so grateful and thank you very much for coming on the show.
Susan: thank you for having me.
