The style of music may change, but the role of the songwriter is always to encapsulate an idea in either intellectual or emotional terms or both. Essentially what a songwriter is doing is packaging. They’re taking the things that people are talking about and the musical wallpaper, if you will, to life and integrating them into a product, something that is consumable.
Of course, there’s always the songwriter who writes only for himself. To be honest, when I actually get down to the process, there’s a huge element of that in there for me as well, in that I’m often looking to create something that I don’t hear elsewhere. And it’s not simply to be different but for my own satisfaction.
As far as songwriters are concerned, as long as there is something recognizable as a music market—in other words, if music doesn’t suddenly become a free commodity; as long as it’s a consumer item—songwriters are always going to have to be aware of consumer tastes. And that’s something that recording and duplication have done to the craft of songwriting. [From Issue 31, July/Aug 1998]