Mining the subconscious for lyrics, more resonances with William Gibson's book "Pattern Recognition"

(Note: all quotes in this Jan 3, 2005 post are from the novel Pattern Recognition Copyright © 2003 by William Gibson)

I've come to realize that, for me, one of the keys to creating is to keep the conscious mind out of the process, and to use it for what it does best: editing and analyzing. The lyrics are a case in point - it's almost like I need to interpret them after I've written them to find out what I meant.

I've had a feeling that the lyrics I've written were somehow echoing some part of William Gibson's book, so I've been re-reading it, looking for influences. Well, I've found the passage that must have been percolating around in my brain. In Chapter 37, Cayce (the protagonist in the story) is brought to an alley in a foreign country: "the only light is from above. A bare bulb, visible up a forbiddingly steep flight of narrow concrete stairs that seems to have no railing" that leads up to a place that was famous in the '80s for hosting an ongoing party that lasted 7 years. In broken english, Cayce's guide tells her that there, people were always "Talking of freedom, art, things of the spirit...People valued friendships, talked endlessly, ate and drank. For many people it was like the life of a student. A life of the spirit." She describes "how it was, here, for artists. Whole universes of blood and imagination, built over lifetimes in rooms like these, never to be seen. To die with their creators, and be swept out."

I remember now how that passage hit me when I first read it. It seems I've somehow subconsciously fused the images and the feeling that this passage evokes with some of my own poem fragments from several years ago, U2's Vertigo, my interest in neural networks and how the brain works, Celebration of the Lizard's journey into the mind, combining aspects of all of these into the lyrics for this song. When I look at the lyrics rationally, from an editorial perspective, I can see so many flaws in them, but for some reason they still somehow work for me - I like the way they sound when sung, and the emotions they haul up out of me. At this point, I'm torn between keeping the song as it stands, extending it with another verse or overhauling it lyrically.

"Whole universes of blood and imagination, built over lifetimes in rooms like these, never to be seen. To die with their creators, and be swept out..." to join the sea.

Pattern Recognition.

Brian
http://www.dreamingintechnicolor.com