I'm In LOVE with the MUSIC of Carly Simon

In December I bought a thee CD boxed set of music by Carly Simon. I've almost worn the crazy CD's out by now or at least worn out my mother with listening to them in the car!

Carly has a booklet of sorts in the boxed set. She writes about the music she sings and talks about how she knows when a song is just right. I thought that it had a lot to do with the way I feel about my scrapbook layouts. How do you know when they're just right? Do they have just the right pieces in just the right places? Does it need a little more, or does it need a little less.

Here's what Carly has to say about her song writing:
I've always wondered what would happen if I held on to one song long enough to make it perfect by my standards. I would keep it locked up in my creative chamber and feed it daily with new ideas, better chord changes, a dream-inspired alteration in the melody, a more sonorous word, more alliteration, simplification, cleaner lines. I suppose it would be somewhat like raising the perfect child. At what point does it become a monster child? Robot-like or over studied, precious? One of the interesting problems the songwriter faces is when to let the song go. Often it is just a matter of deadline and I think back and look at the songs I have chosen to include here, it is significant, the part that practicality plays. You gotta get it done. But when there is no deadline what is it that makes you finish a song? I have come to believe that you must fall in love. When you really fall in love with a song, it becomes perfect for that moment in time. Maybe in a year you'll look back and say: "How could I have loved that song so much?" But in the first blush, the honeymoon period, the song can do no wrong. That is when you want to shout it to the world and parade it in front of your friends. I think that's what the act of creativity must be about. It's about making something you believe is better than you are, and for a moment, you merge with it and think it's you and you are it. Even when I am in a state of self loathing I can write something that I fall in love with. Deluded though I might be, it makes me feel better about myself and it usually inspires me to write another song. This goes not only for songwriting, but for fixing dinner or arranging flowers. At some point, and mostly it's a combination of accident and inspiration (being led by a larger hand), it comes together in a way that seems just right at the time, and that is the time to let it go. Sometimes it's just because it fits for the day. It may not be the greatest song, but it fits your soul at the moment and therefore speaks honestly. So you let it go out there into the great, big, kind, cruel and indifferent universe. .........