One thing that distinguishes artists from everyone else is their hyperattention to their surroundings. Specifically, good lyricists (and that means songwriters and poets) see beauty in even the most mundane of things. And there's no better example of that than Mirah, who maintains a Tumblr account that features nothing but pictures of discarded banana peels she finds on the streets of San Francisco. She claims on the site that she doesn't think this has anything to do with her music, but I must disagree. It's all part of her creative package. This is exactly what makes songwriters artistic: they see purpose in everything, even (really, especially) in things that most of us never notice.
Read More