Brenda, Put Your Bra On!
Big week so far. Two series pitches (two got pushed), one feature pitch (I'm advancing to the next round), a surprise opportunity, and have I told you I'm doing all of this WHILE WE'RE MOVING to La Crescenta??
In between I wanted to take a little time this week to tell you about something that inspired me recently. Hopefully it will speak to you too.
About that headline...
A little over a month ago, singer-songwriter Ashley McBryde released a fantastic concept album called Lindeville. The name is an homage to Dennis Linde, the prolific songwriter behind hits like Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love, “Goodbye, Earl,” from The Chicks, “Bubba Shot the Jukebox,“"John Deere,” and on and on, He’s also the songwriter behind a beloved movie moment, the “Cool Rider” number from GREASE 2, a fact I didn't know until I started researching this issue.
At some point in his career, Dennis realized he needed a way to keep track of all of the working class characters in his songs so he created a map of a fictional town and filled it in with all of the places and people that inspired those hits. On it, you can see Earl’s repair shop, the bar where Bubba shot that jukebox, and the water tower where Billy Bob painted a ten-foot-tall heart and professed his love for Charlene in John Deere green.
Years later, Ashley realized that she and a bunch of her friends had written songs about or from the point of view of working class characters and came up with the idea of giving them a fictional town to populate. She put together a writers retreat where she and her collaborators spent their days hanging out and writing whatever came to mind. As she explained to CBS Mornings in the video below, they “threw out all the shoulds” and just did whatever was fun. Sometimes they wrote songs, sometimes they wrote radio jingles. Along the way, they took inspiration from Dennis Linde, and decided to name the town and the record in his honor.
The record starts off with “Brenda, Put Your Bra On,” in which a couple of girls try to get their friend to hurry up and get dressed so she can join them to watch the drama next door. In one interview, Ashely described it as, “Dropping the listener into an action scene, like in a movie.” It’s fast paced and funny as hell.
There’s a spoken word song called, “Gospel Night at the Strip Club” that reminds me of “Blind Man in the Bleachers,” a 45 I used to listen to on repeat as a kid at my Granny Carol's house, crying my eyes out with every spin. The last song on the record might my favorite, a simple lullaby written from the point of view of the clock on the town square, “Watching over this old town like a bird on a wire.”
Like I mentioned before, this started with a bunch of friends holed up in a cabin for a week and reveling in the pure joy of making something cool together. Once they saw the reactions to the songs from other friends in the industry they started talking about making demos. Then John Osborne came on to produce and it turned in to a full-fledged record. The label was expecting her to turn in her third official album but she brought this to them instead. There were no guarantees they would release it but once they heard it they had the same reaction everybody else did.
I love everything about this record, the initial spark of the idea, the community of collaborators she put together, the courage it took for her to deliver the unexpected, the nod to the past, and the soul piercing insights of the songs themselves.
From the article on Billboard, linked below:
“The expected thing, especially coming off having a No. 1 with Carly, is to shoot straight down the middle,” says McBryde, seated in her manager’s Nashville office outfitted with stained glass windows and slightly gothic, antique knickknacks. “I think that’s the perfect reason not to do that. When you do a love project like this, it’s supposed to be like, album five or six, or 10, which is another reason to do it now. Because f—k ‘should,’ right?”
Once assembled they all gathered at a lake house about an hour outside of Nashville for a week-long writing retreat, leaving with songs that reverberate with unvarnished truths. “We had no thought of, ‘Should this a ballad?’ or ‘We need to write a song about this [topic].’ Our goal was just to be happy … Somebody might be high, somebody might be a bit drunk or just had a mimosa. If it’s lunch, someone’s making sandwiches while we’re writing or you’re eating on top of your sketch pad. We were having so much fun we didn’t want to stop.”
Now, looking around the room she’s currently in, McBryde recalls gathering the team that put Lindeville together in that same space less than a month ago to celebrate what they had made. “We had charcuterie and cocktails and listened to it. I wanted us to experience it together at the same time, and not just through a link on your phone. When we write stuff, sometimes you can tell that it’s an idea that came to visit and let you be its mouthpiece for a minute. This felt important to hear together, the magic we created.”
That last paragraph really resonated with me. We’ve been so isolated for the past few years because of the pandemic, and increasingly divided over *waves hands in general direction of everything.* Making something out of love with people you admire and respect, then taking time to get together and experience it in person, that’s something tangible to aspire to, something truly special, beyond arbitrary metrics of “success."
Be like Dennis Linde. Make a map of your fictional world and fill in the gaps. You never know when some random corner will yield a character or angle you wouldn’t have come up with otherwise. (There's a great example of this on Lindeville, there's a song from the point of view of an older gentleman who takes care of the little league baseball fields.)
Be like Ashley. Forget the shoulds. Follow the fun. Make stuff with people you love, with no obligations or expectations. Grab your audience’s attention right away. (I stole her title for this headline in the hopes of grabbing your attention.) Take them to unexpected places. Honor the past. Honor yourself and your collaborators by celebrating your work.
If you have eight minutes you should absolutely watch this video of her talking to CBS Mornings. There’s a wonderful twist and a surprise guest halfway through. Keep a Kleenex handy.
If you have a few more minutes, check out the Billboard article and the song linked below. If you’re a music fan (or a super cool theater interested in doing new work) check out the whole album. It might spark some ideas for you.
Have a great weekend!
Ashley McBryde on Crafting ‘Lindeville’ With Brandy Clark, John Osborne & More: ‘It Was Like a Puzzle, Only the Pieces Were Invisible’ — www.billboard.com Ashley McBryde teams with Brandy Clark, Caylee Hammack, Nicolette Hayford and more for her new album 'Lindeville.'
ATHENA
Speaking of grabbing the audience right away and holding on to them...
I've been meaning to tell you about ATHENA, one of my favorite movies of the year. It's a technical marvel, but it's also a really beautiful example of "Action is character." The first twenty seconds of this trailer is essentially the opening minute of the movie. It takes off like a rocket and doesn't stop until the very last frame. The very last frame, people. Check it out!
Yoda of the Week: Rick Rubin
I made the mistake of clicking on one video from somebody in the "man-o- sphere" and now the algorithm regularly feeds me Joe Rogan videos, but I'm so glad I caught this one. Rick's book comes out in a few months, no doubt I'll be talking about it here when it drops. I love this clip:
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