Daniel Lanois

“I get on with work no matter what emotions I’m going through. I show up to the studio every day and get something done.”

Legendary producer Daniel Lanois brings his discipline in the control room to his songwriting process.

Daniel Lanois has produced Bob Dylan, U2, Neil Young, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, the Neville Brothers, and many, many others. Working with legends requires discipline, a methodical and workmanlike approach to the creative process. So it’s no surprise that Lanois uses that same discipline in his songwriting process.

Lanois creates every day. He may feel like crap or he may not feel like working, but he’s in the studio. Of course, not every day brings a flood of inspiration, so Lanois uses certain tricks to move things along. His latest: composing on the piano, even though he’s primarily a guitar player. “It’s important to use tricks like that,” he told me over the phone. And when he needs a melody to get him out of a rut, he heads right to his “song orphanage,” a massive collection of song parts just waiting for a home.

The real discipline comes when it’s time to assemble the parts. Lanois takes a huge piece of artist paper and fills it with thought bubbles, boxes, lyrics, highlighters, and Sharpies. There’s arrows and lines connecting these pieces. It’s one song per side (no page flipping allowed). “The paper looks like an old messy school blackboard in a math class,” he says. It’s on this page that he creates the song.

The new album by Daniel Lanois is called Heavy Sun. Listen to it here after you read our interview all about his creative process.

Has it been difficult to be creative over the past year? Or more broadly, is it difficult to write under heavy emotional weight?

A

I get on with work no matter what emotions I’m going through, and I’d like to think that those emotions work their way into my work. I show up to the studio every day and get something done. I’d say that melody comes to me regardless of what state I’m in. I’m composing on the piano right now, and there’s been a wealth of inspiration possibly because of the naive spirit that’s flowing through me since I’m primarily a guitar player. It’s important to use tricks like that to move things along. Like trying to create on a different instrument.

I have a lot of song beginnings in what I call my “song orphanage.” I can call the orphanage at any time and pull a few songs from there. Because of that, I never really run into a roadblock. They’re all in my studio, and I like to bring them to some kind of conclusion so that they sound beautiful and not like some kind of scratchy recording.

Do you try to write every day?

A

It’s part of my routine to work every day, even when I’m not in the mood. There’s an old Brian Eno technique that says Let’s tidy up. When things get a little messy, you clean up some lyrics so that they’re not forgotten, and you put riffs in their proper place. And by tidying up, you just might notice that one part that’s putting up its hand because it wants to be a song. Not every moment of every day needs to be an inspired moment. It’s ok to say Well, it’s a little blase now, but the sun will shine in a minute, so just get on with your chores.

I never get tired of experimenting in the studio. I may build something that was never intended to be song, then all the sudden a lyric or a title comes to mind, and off I go. That’s where it gets interesting. I might bump into a life experience of have some kind of exchange with someone that inspires me to create. Lyrics come from everywhere.

Most songwriters have told me that they don’t work well with deadlines. But as a producer, that’s a part of your life. So has that experience with deadlines made you more disciplined as a songwriter?

A

There’s a song called “Cruel World” that I wrote for Willie Nelson. It came out of a discussion i was having with someone. I was telling him how I used to be very close to this woman, and then she moved to the country, unplugged, and started a family. She told me that she did it because there was nothing she could do about the “cruel world.” And I thought, Woah, that’s a great title. Willie said, “That’s a great title, so why don’t you write the song?” I knocked out the verses very quickly and wrote the song in an hour.

How important is the idea of ritual to your writing process?

A

I do my best work when I have a very large piece of paper in front of me. I use these giant artist pads that are around 28 inches by 22 inches. I’ll jot down a few ideas then draw some thought bubbles to make an improvement, then do the same thing in another spot on the page. At the end of a writing session, that page is completely covered up. I want to see the evolution of my work on one page; I don’t want to be flipping pages. It looks like a messy school blackboard in a math class. It’s one page per song. I usually write more than I need, which allows me to pick and choose. A graphic display like that opens up so many possibilities.

As far as when I write, morning time is clear head time. I’m in a better mood in the beginning of the day. Late afternoon is the worst time for me, just because I get to thinking about what went on during the day. But late night is also good because the defenses are down. It’s a good time to listen to the voice of reason.

“I’m composing on the piano right now, and there’s been a wealth of inspiration possibly because of the naive spirit that’s flowing through me since I’m primarily a guitar player. It’s important to use tricks like that to move things along. Like trying to create on a different instrument. ”

Do you start in the middle of the page?

A

Nope, I start at the top then work my way down. Then i write in the margins on the left, trying to improve the lines. The lyrics are a center column, which allows me to revise on both sides. As I do more writing, I squeeze the lines together into a verse and put them in a thought bubble. The schematics are all over the place. It’s pretty wild.

I like to use those nice artist pens that you find in the paint store. They have to have a fine tip so that I can write very small. But when I get mad, I pull out a Sharpie. Laughs. “You want a title? Here’s the title!” It’s a good way for me to put something down permanently, and in big letters, when it’s taking me too long to think of something.

Is the color of ink important?

A

I stay with black, but I’ve been using highlighters the last few years when I want to clarify that something is a verse and something else might be a bridge. For that, it’s color coding. That’s fun because you get to see that all the yellows will be bridge considerations and all the yellows will be verses.

I never cross anything out. I just move to an open space on the page. I also use a number system. The first thing that comes out of my mouth gets a 1 . The second verse is usually in a thought bubble at the bottom of the page, so that gets a 2. It’s a big mess, of course, and the numbers are all over the place, but it’s like following the bouncing ball.

I like to stick with one song per page, unless such a mess that I need to begin a new page. Then I’ll transfer all the old information to the new page. But no page flipping! I never write on both sides of the page.

A lot of songwriters I interview like to journal. Is that something you like to do?

A

My journaling involves mostly studio work. If I do five takes of a song, maybe there was something special to the intro of the first one, but nothing about the others was memorable. So I do a “best of” for the parts of a song, and that’s where I journal actively and use graph paper.

I treat the arrangement of a song like a long sentence. It starts on the left and ends on the right. Every part of the song gets a little box. The first box is the intro, then it’s like a little train. And each car of the train gets a name too. Then I take lines from a box and write a comment either above or below it about what I like or don’t like about it. The sentence starts at zero and ends at three and a half minutes. It’s very mathematical.

When I hear you describe that process, it makes sense why your songwriting process also involves big pieces of paper and images and graphics. There are definite similarities.

A

Now that I hear you say that, yes. I think of songs in terms of images. When I write a song, the location comes into play. There’s a scene in my head. In a three and a half minute song, you can tell a whole movie. I can’t think of another art form that can do that, except for maybe a five frame comic.

photo by Marthe A. Vannebo

I’m sure you’re a voracious reader, so who are some of your favorite authors?

A

I’ve always been a big fan of William Butler Yeats. He’s been a nonstop source of inspiration. I always got the feeling that he was a frustrated man, but very smart. At some point, a lotus flower rose up and gave voice to a lot of those feelings of frustration. We’ve all been there, but few are able to write about those feelings like Yeats.

I spent a lot time in Ireland making U2 records and have read a lot of Irish literature. There’s still a lot of reverence over there for the literary life. It’s where you might walk into a pub and see a poet writing in the corner. I asked Leonard Cohen how he first got started, and he told me, “I took a lyrical pilgrimage to Ireland.”

Do those writers influence your songwriting process?

A

When I scored the music to the movie All the Pretty Horses, Harvey Weinstein thought we were nuts because the movie was close to four hours long. He told us we’d never be able to sell it to theaters. But some of my favorite parts were some of those long scenes with the slow talking. I appreciated that they were written that way because in a fast world, it’s nice when thoughts can unfold in a slow way. It shows that the words are coming from a deep place.

And that is what makes for good writing: when you’re not hurried. Not everything needs to be condensed. You don’t have to rush. Bob (Dylan) told me that. I was recording a version of “God on Our Side” with Aaron Neville when Bob walked into the studio. Aaron had written another verse, and we played it for him. I asked Bob if it made the song too long, and he said, “It’s not long enough. That sentiment can never be too long.”

That really changed the way I viewed songs when he said that. Don’t hurry something that’s great and profound.