A Conversation with Maia Sharp (continued)

MS: Buddy Mondlock and I got really close on the road when we were doing the trio.

PM: He's a beautiful guy.

MS: He's a really sweet guy, and a great writer. We wrote one together on my last record that I'm very proud of.

PM: Was Art Garfunkel pretty cool to work with? Is he a nice guy?

MS: He is a nice guy. He was incredibly supportive of me. He was beyond--I mean, he would stand in the wings and sing along to my sound check, and quote me my own lyrics back, of songs from the old albums that he had obviously been listening to. And he had really great, great things to say. He was very kind and gracious to me.

PM: Speaking of co-writers, Brad and I both really enjoyed your cohort Janet Robin the other night.

MS: Oh, she's great.

PM: Wow.

MS: Janet and I are great friends. We've been friends for ten years.

PM: And like you said about David Batteau, I thought that all the songs you wrote with her were uniquely different than everything else in the set.

MS: Yes. Janet is one of my few co-writers where when we get together, the roles are clear. She does ninety-five percent of the music, and I do ninety-five percent of the lyrics.

PM: Oh, I like those kind of co-writing relationships, where it gets somehow defined like that.

MS: Yeah, because most of them aren't. It is with Liz, because she's a lyricist only.

PM: Does that mean you don't get to chip in on the lyrics with her?

MS: No, I definitely chip in on the lyrics. But it means I'm writing all the music.

PM: And so, in the relationship with Janet, she's written most of the music.

MS: She's writing most of the music. And she comes from a very cool place. She played for Lindsay Buckingham for years and was heavily influenced by him.

PM: She's a badass guitar player.

MS: She's a badass guitar player, and she's got that Lindsay feel, and she goes to those places--plus her own thing, of course. But yeah, I think when she comes in with a piece of music that's so fresh like that, it's very inspiring for me to write the lyric.

PM: Yeah. I'm trying to get her record. We got to get her in the magazine too.

MS: Yeah, absolutely.

PM: For the many readers who have written songs but not done much co-writing, would you say something in your own words about the merits and the overall experience of co-writing songs?

MS: Well, first of all, the upside is that on a political level, you increase your chances of getting your song heard, because your co-writer is out there working it and if they have a publisher, they're out there working it, in addition to your own efforts. So the song just has a better chance of being heard if there's more than one person involved in it.

I tend to work much faster when I'm working with somebody else. Because when I write alone, I write a little bit, and then I have to step away and kind of be my own co-writer. I step away, I come back in a week to see if I still like it, I see where I really wanted to go. So it takes me a few weeks if I'm writing alone. And with a co-writer, it can take as little as a day.

The downside is that if you're not with somebody that you know is a good fit--and the only way to find that out is to write with them--if you're not with somebody who turns out to be a good fit, your own voice can be watered down, and you can feel like you're having to compromise too often.

PM: And that's depressing.

MS: It is depressing. But I've been doing this so long, I only go back to those people where I never feel that way when a song is done.

PM: Right. But as you say, you can only find out by writing with somebody.

MS: Yeah. So if you come up with a really great idea, and it's somebody that's a first-time co-write, and it turns out it's not such a great fit, and then you've spent that idea, that can be sad.

PM: Right. That's sad. [laughs] As a person who writes so much, and co-write so much, how do you keep the lyrical ideas coming?

MS: Well, I don't know. First of all, I don't write every day.

PM: You don't?

MS: No. I don't do that 10:00 to 4:00 thing.

PM: I'm not disposed to that either.

MS: And I don't make myself write if I don't feel like I have something to write about.

PM: Good for you.

MS: If I book a co-writing session or a trip to Nashville, I'll spend the whole week before looking for lines, or ideas. But I go for weeks without writing a song. I mean, on the road, I never write, because I'm too focused on the road. There's so much stuff going on, and when I'm writing a song, I want that to be the only thing I'm thinking about.

PM: Right.  continue

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