Heart attack
Robert Gomez wants to cut off his head and sing a song before he loses consciousness and dies. The Denton, Texas, resident and former Norah Jones bandmate is putting music to the stories in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler‘s book Severance, which contains 62 “short short stories” based on that premise. While in Europe playing guitar for neighbor Sarah Jaffe, in support of fellow neighbors Midlake, Gomez emailed me about his work-in-progress and offered up a demo version of the song “Chicken,” a hushed guitar number whose extended title pretty much sums it up.
“Chicken (Americauna pullet, beheaded in Alabama for Sunday dinner, 1958″
Where’d you get the inspiration for the project?
I was walking into a neighborhood college bookstore a block away from my home in Denton, TX. I don’t know, to buy some cd mailers or something and there was a clearance bin of books. So as I was rummaging through the dr.phil self helps and teen love stories I happened upon Robert Olen Butler’s Severance. It must of gotten there by mistake! After reading the first two quotes;
After careful study and due deliberation it is my opinion the head remains conscious for one minute and a half after decapitation.-Dr. Dassy D’Estaing, 1883
In a heightened state of emotion, we speak at the rate of 160 words per minute.-Dr. Emily Reasoner, a Sourcebook of Speech, 1975
(the overall premise for the poems) I was drawn in and after a couple of cursory readings I bought it and took it home to live with it a while. I’ve been thinking for sometime it would be interesting to collaborate with a writer. To write music to another’s words pushes the music in new directions. And what great words Robert Butler has written.
What’s the timeline for the project?
I’m hoping to have it done by the end of this year. I’m currently finishing up the third song now. Its hard to write on the road these days but I’m trying to keep at it.
How important is it to have a “concept” when undertaking a recording?
This is my very first real concept album and although I’ve never made a concept record I’m very much falling in love with the idea of it all, of having a common thread connecting all the songs.
What’s it like writing music to words that already exist–with a set meter, cadence, etc.–versus being able to have the power to change up words to complement your music?
Its a challenge to say the least but it does make the music go into different directions which I love. As far as the meter and cadence I have a lot of leeway since the poems are written in a block of text; there are no real breaks or stanzas. Sort of a rush of consciousness, at least that’s my interpretation. As a result I get to make a lot of creative decisions as far as the break of the line.
How many of them do you plan to record?
I’m hoping on completing 10. And maybe even writing a severance poem of my own. My own decapitation in 240 words inspired by robert olen butler’s decapitation poem at the end of the book.
