Neil Finn

Great article on Neil Finn at Salon.com (by subscription). A New Zealander, he’s barely known here in the U.S., and if at all as the singer-songwriter from Crowded House (“Don’t Dream It’s Over”). I have a couple of Crowded House CDs and Finn’s first solo album, “Try Whistling This,” which is wonderfully crafted, almost endlessly interesting lyrically and musically. I saw him and his band live outdoors on a small stage in Boston after that album came out and I was so impressed with how strong his voice was (some musicians sound great in the studio, but not so live) and how good the musicianship was. Finn was genial and unassuming, but as the Salon article points out, he’s revered by numerous songwriters.

It seems to me a really good songwriter is a poet who, on top of well-crafted verse, adds an equivalent richness of musical “poetry,” if you will. It’s stunning to me when I hear songs – an entire album, or more – that can pull off that melding brilliantly and in a way that’s emotionally affecting for the listener. Finn’s work is like that; to me, it really gets in under the skin and into the bloodstream. That said, a lot of his work is haunting and dark, and I can remember times when I couldn’t bear to listen because of things going on in my life, but still the songs would stick in my head, resonating with and exacerbating my melancholy.

But back to Finn’s songwriting… A line popped out at me in the Salon article that applies to any kind of poetry or lyrical writing, I think: “Bad songwriters look only inward; good ones find emotional correlatives in the world outside them. Finn's songs are bursting with moonlight, tall trees and volcanoes…” File that one for myself to remember, I who look so much inward and have to remind myself to look around. For I’m not at all naturally inclined to look with curiosity outside myself as the poets/fools Dave described, referring to Tom Montag’s post. I have had to make myself do this, although when I do it is immensely gratifying. In one way it takes me out of myself, which is much needed, but the world outside also does loop back with “emotional correlatives” that satisfy – in a way that feels physically centering, like the body after a full yoga session or a good long run. Or, as the article on Finn says, “You sense he has sought and found the perfect chord and instrument to express each idea and emotion. It's what Yeats meant when he said that a successful poem will ‘come shut with a click, like a closing box.’”

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Also at Salon today, there’s an interesting interview with (of) Terry Gross. But now, to work, with a song playing in my head, “Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you…”

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