Cover Yourself

I love musical covers—when a singer or band remakes a song by another singer or band. I can, and have, debated, for too many hours, the virtues, or lack thereof, of these remade melodies. But my love of this small subclass of music has only a tangential involvement in the music. I love them for what the reveal about the creative process.

As we grew up, our teachers tried to convince us that the creative process (or, to put a finer point on it, the writing process) is a linear one. I’m certain this was unintentional—it’s just easier to teach things as a step-by-step process. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to take a room full of fifth graders, and try to explain that even though Jane got her brainstorm after five minutes, she’s going to need seven rewrites, and Joe never had a moment of epiphany but still managed a fantastically weird story after only two drafts they’re both doing great.

But as adults who study writing (no matter how loose you need define study) we’ve all learned that it’s not linear. It’s not even three-dimensional. Heck, at times it feels like it’s its own dimension.

When someone writes a song, or when a writer writes a story (or poem, essay, review, article, etc.), at some point relatively early in the creative process they become tied to part of their idea. Maybe it’s a scene of a story, or a musical bridge they think is especially clever. Either way, through each rewrite that kernel stays with the work. An outsider may be able to look at it and see that it doesn’t fit what the piece has evolved into, but the author is so emotionally tied to it that it never even occurs to them that it might need to go. Why would it need to go? That’s where the damn idea came from.

But when someone covers a song, they take a fresh look at the melody, the rhythm, the tempo, the words. They generally won’t play around with the heart of the song, but they may completely change that kne thing that original artist thought was the heart of the song.

Now in writing, it would be bad form to cover another’s story without permission (which in most cases wouldn’t even be given). But you are free to cover your own work. Recently I reread an old story of mine. Twenty-Two years old to be precise. I’d forgotten the details of the story. And as I reread it, the heart of the story told itself to me a completely new way. The two stories are still the same story. But unless you had access to the inspiration for each you’d never know it.

You should try it sometime. Cover yourself.