Peter Beatty on capturing inspiration

Peter Beatty: “The more truthful you are at the beginning, the more people will believe it in the end.” Photo: Sabrina Dallot-Seguro

The English independent artist on harnessing that mystical being, inspiration, and making the most of the moments when it visits

There’s a common perception that inspiration is an elusive and mystical being. And, like any apparition, you have no idea when it’s going to materialise or how long it’s going to stay. There’s a rush of excitement upon realising its entrance, which can be followed, sometimes quite quickly, by departure, and then a feeling of abandonment, loss and disappointment. If you experience that disappointment, it’s probably because you feel like you didn’t make the most of your encounter with the elusive inspiration-being.

Is there more we can do to be prepared for its arrival? The more I’ve got to know ‘it’ the more I believe you must try your utmost to capitalise upon these moments. It’s so often been the case for me that, when such moments have gone, it has felt impossibly hard to continue with or come back to an idea. Or I felt like I’ve only got the bare bones before the mystical being departed, leaving me scratching my head asking, “How am I supposed to finish this on my own?”

However, I’ve figured out some approaches that have helped me to make the most of such moments. And these are based on self-awareness, trust, discipline, good practice, focus and having no fear.

BE PROACTIVE

The first thing I’d say is, I don’t think inspiration is something you should just wait for. I’ve let that happen in the past, and I think it’s far better to be a proactive writer, accepting that you will regularly not be pleased with what you’re writing, and that a high proportion of it will remain unfinished.

But don’t cave in and find this soul-destroying! If you are writing regularly, you will become a better writer through practice and, through more productivity, you will find that there is more material that stands out as ‘good’. But also, you will find that inspiration can arrive at any moment while you are writing, so through writing more you increase the likelihood of being able to capture it.

TRUST THAT INSPIRATION WILL RETURN

Obviously, we all have lives though, so if you’re not to sit and wait, it’s unlikely you can afford to just sit and write full time either. If you start to feel you’ve been ‘not waiting for inspiration’ for quite a long time, it can be easy to get frustrated and start to lose your self-belief. So, another thing I believe in relates to self-awareness and trust: if you’ve had inspiration before, then you should trust inspiration will arrive again. But you need to learn to become not just good at recognising it when it does, but also figuring out what works best for you to be most receptive to it, and this way develop your own approach which you can put into practice whenever it arrives.

For me, a key part of this approach is trying to crystallise the idea early on. Simply put, what the song is about. Whatever story the song is telling, or message it’s trying to convey, if you can pull this into focus quickly then you will help to give your narrative coherence and your lyrics a clear direction. Alternative directions may emerge, but you can still make a note of these too and be flexible and allow this to change later.

DRAW FROM YOUR TRUTH

The next point is recognising the relationship between inspiration and truth. If you find yourself capturing a moment of inspiration for a song idea, be honest with yourself, your experiences, feelings, and beliefs, and make sure you draw upon truthful experience. This will help channel that inspiration and make for a better song. Also, people can sense what is genuine and what is contrived. The more truthful you are at the beginning, the more people will believe it in the end.

If you’ve got this far, and you’ve written a first verse and chorus, in the excitement of feeling you’ve produced something quite good, that has a clear direction and feels truthful, don’t head off to the pub for a self-congratulatory drink – stick at it for as long as you’re in that moment of inspiration. In other words, it’s about being disciplined and having good practice: keep writing and keep working on it.

Peter Beatty: “It’s better to end up with too much and then you can strip stuff away.” Photo: Sabrina Dallot-Seguro

KEEP A RECORD

Next (and this is an obvious one), as soon as possible keep a record of it. I just use the voice memo app on my iPhone, and I pretty much keep a record of every idea I have. I am a believer that if an idea is good, it will keep coming back to you and you to it, but even so, to have a simple recording of how you sang a melody, plucked a guitar and in what tuning, is invaluable, as there’s always a chance you may forget exactly how you sang or played it the very first time.

This includes when I’m walking around. I won’t have my guitar, but I may get an idea for a lyric or a melody, and I will make a note of it in my Notes app or record a voice memo. I’ve done this so often now that I’m no longer bothered when people walk past looking at me strangely while I’m standing there singing into my phone.

To be honest, it can be easy to view a folder of hundreds of voice memos as a song graveyard, but in fact it’s like a sketchbook and of immeasurable value. Yes, most things will never get finished, but often when I look back, I find multiple recordings of an idea over time, and it can be useful to see how it evolved.

LOOK BACK TO MOVE FORWARD

Sometimes, there are multiple parts of arrangements. Or I go back to an idea and pick it up again a long time later, maybe with an entirely fresh perspective for the narrative and lyrics, and just drawing off the chords, melody and structure. I also find when I look back, that I tend to recognise the ideas that feel more inspired, and recognising this can reawaken that moment and open some new inspiration.

But the above point is accompanied by this one: don’t be overly critical of yourself and don’t be fearful of writing a load of rubbish. It’s better to end up with too much and then you can strip stuff away. If you end up writing 20 verses it’s fine if most of them are not so good, or even a bit terrible, if the remaining few are strong.

EMOTIONAL GIBBERISH

When I record ideas on an iPhone, I regularly just sing what sounds like gibberish, random words, or phonetic sounds. But I’m nearly always focusing on either my emotions, thoughts, experiences, memories, or beliefs. It can be a let-down listening back through ten minutes of mumblings over a guitar (though it can be amusing as well), but sometimes I can surprise myself by getting lost in the moment and find that strong ideas emerged.

You can call it ‘inspiration’ but you can also simply describe it as a combination of the mind, the heart, and the soul working together on thoughts and feelings on a subconscious level. Amongst the unintelligible, they sometimes produce recognisable language or sounds that make sense or, even better, actually say something of meaning. Though, to be honest, I still wouldn’t particularly want to share these recordings with anyone!

AN EXAMPLE – ‘GO GENTLY’

One of the songs on my album Different Flowers is called Go Gently. I wrote it a few years ago after the death of my grandmother, and the experience of writing it resonates with some of what I’ve said above. When we knew she was dying, her last weeks and eventual death were very protracted. After my final visit when she was alive, I wrote some lyrics down about the experience on the train back home.

When I returned to sit with her just after she had died, I was reminded of something my mother said about the Dylan Thomas poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. In his poem, he wishes for his father to fight against death. Sometime later back at home, reflecting on the loss, the Thomas poem came back to me, and I realised I had felt the opposite: my grandmother’s death had been so protracted that I had wanted her to just go gently into the good night.

At that moment, I was relating to an honest feeling within a real experience, and there was also the sensation of inspiration arriving and a song forming. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and I wrote down as many lyrics as possible. I was also able to refer to the notes I had made after the last time I saw her alive.

Very quickly, and strummed on a guitar, a verse/chorus, melody and song structure emerged, and I made recordings of this on my phone. I didn’t complete it all straight away, indeed some of it is just humming or mumbling to fill gaps where I didn’t have lyrics. But I did enough in the moment that I had drawn upon truth, experience and real emotions to tell the story I wanted to.

I believe this carried through to the final recording. I think the arrangement, the instrumentation, and the musicians’ performances reflect a belief in the truth of the song they are hearing, particularly Ewan Bleach’s stunning clarinet as a representation of a spirit soaring off into the night, and Fred Thomas’ percussion section like a gently fading pulse.

What’s also wonderful is that the song also inspired a video, made by the brilliant filmmaker Isabel Anderton, which has its own tale and fantasy. So, I like to think that if you can really get hold of a moment of inspiration, it can be a future spark for new ones.

Peter Beatty’s debut album Different Flowers is out now on Nightjar Recordings. Find out more via peterbeatty.co.uk

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