New Series: “I’m Writing Towards…”

Here’s a new series coming — so I’m just writing a bit about that now to work it all out…basically me talking about lifelong and crucial influences and inspirations

“You’ve got an invalid haircut/And it hursts when you smile/You better get out of town/Before your nickname expires”

The late, great Warren Zevon. Title track to his funniest album, Life’ll Kill Ya; one of his best.

I was already a fan when I heard this — I knew Werewolf. And Excitable Boy. Desperados Under The Eaves. And a few others. But Life’ll Kill Ya was my re-entry, and I became obsessed. He was combining Tom Petty with Charles Bukowski. And so was I. At least in terms of my cultural consumption. He sang these songs about cutting a woman in half but how you wouldn’t want to look in the box when he was through — then the, ahem, cutting line (and title): “For my next trick I’ll need a volunteer…”

I’ve written about Warren before.

Ten Songs Only Warren Zevon Could Have Written

Often actually.

I (Still) Keep Forgetting He's Gone: The Great, Great Songs By Warren Zevon

And in a recent/ish piece for my Autism Diaries series I went in on Excitable Boy, a sort of Dire Straits-meets-American Psycho thing that existed long before the book, and before Dire Straits moved towards that particular type of boogie:

The line I had there was that Excitable Boy is exactly the sort of thing I feel “I am always writing towards”. In my fiction, I love stories that are awkward and uncomfortable, or characters that embody that; it’s how I like my plot lines to roll along. Bumps all over the road. I love writing dark, I love writing weird, I love writing realism and natural stuff too — within that, and outside of that — but I am drawn to certain things. There are movies and music and other books and many things that I feel I am somewhat “writing towards”; by which I mean they are on my mind. They are the aspirational forces I seek. I am not capable of, no trying to replicate, but hoping to take some of that magic dust and see if I can plant it in my patch and grow a tiny wee ‘something’.

And so many of the pieces I send out from this Substack newsletter are already in service to that. Or could be. Although let’s not get them all confused as just the one thing. The decision to write sincerely about Walking In Memphis doesn’t mean I am writing towards that song.

But Split Enz’s Time For A Change or Stranger Than Fiction or Late Last Night or Spellbound or Sweet Dreams might all be candidates. Paul Kelly’s When I First Met Your Ma and To Her Door definitely are. So are several Raymond Carver short stories. And the Patti Smith album, Horses, and her memoir Just Kids. There’s also many Underworld songs, and whole albums by Genesis and Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream. There are full novels by many authors, certain songs or just single lines from within scenes in movies; or the character work in Magnolia from Tom Cruise and John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman. And the shaping of that movie through Aimee Mann’s songs. So many great needle-drop moments in so many movies. So many lines in books, in plays, in TV shows…

I hope you know what I mean.

Well, stick with me and you will.

This new weekly series will see me identifying a different cultural component that has had impact/influence on my work. I’ll be trying to unpack it slightly, and/or just recommending it.

So I used Warren there are the first example, but we’ll be back to talk about him more, for sure. Because he’s almost always on my mind I think. Not a week goes by. And it seemed best to give you (and myself) a heads up around what I think I’m about to do. Like any series, it will either get a roll on or it won’t. It will evolve with time. Or die on the vine.