David Byrne on Collaboration

Kent is reading How Music Works by David Byrne, as everyone he knows is already aware because he keeps recommending it. (It’s really good.)

One of the themes expressed throughout the book is collaboration. Now, Byrne is talking about music and lyrics rather than fiction, but it’s remarkable how little that seems to matter. Working creatively as part of a team is subject to some universal rules, it seems.

Of course, a lot of this collaboration theme comes out when he’s telling about how Talking Heads’ music came into existence. Working with bandmates is the fundamental form of musical collaboration. But it comes up again and again in other, less expected ways too.

An especially interesting passage connected to this theme describes the process of creating the songs for the theatrical production Here Lies Love. There were multiple layers of collaborative activity. First of all, the lyrics were inpired by, and when possible directly quoted from, things that Imelda Marcos actually said, making her a contibutor to the process years after the fact. The subject matter and story line were established before any music was even contemplated, providing a set of constraints the he had to operate within. Launching a show takes a long time, and well after the music was “complete” Byrne got notes from the producers of the play, not wanting to change words or tunes around, but a desire for specific character motivations and plot points to be added to the songs. They told him what their story needed, and trusted him to figure out how to make it happen.

This really resonated with Kent, because it felt a lot like how he and Jen find their way through a manuscript. The pre-writing tells us what we need, and then composing the actual scenes is when we make it happen. In our case we both wear both the writer hat and the editor/producer hat, but the analogy is still very strong.

Whatever kind of art you create, teaming up with a partner can make the process more productive and rewarding.