Posts in Rock n Roll Hall of Fame
John Oates, Hall and Oates
John Oates, Hall and Oates

When I started this site in 2010, I had a goal: treat songwriters as writers, plain and simple. As someone with a Ph.D. in English Literature, I had read my share of interviews with poets, playwrights, novelists, and short story writers detailing their writing process. But what about songwriters? Aren't they writers too? Shouldn't they be included? So when John Oates started our interview by saying, "I've always looked at myself as a writer," I swooned.  Because songwriters are writers. Period. 

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Pop, Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Influencers, RockBen OpipariArchives Comment
Nils Lofgren, Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band
Nils Lofgren, Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band

When talking about his songwriting process, Nils Lofgren, guitarist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, espouses a view shared by successful long-form writers. To many of them, writer's block is merely a failure of courage: it happens when writers expect perfection whenever they put pen to paper.  They're afraid to write badly. But any good writer will tell you that you cannot be afraid to write badly, because writing badly makes you better.  Some writing is better than no writing, and with work you can turn bad writing into better writing.  If you wait for perfection, you won't get much accomplished.

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Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Influencers, Roots RockBen Opipari Comments