Crystal Wise
Pat Green
It’s an interchangeable motif many musicians, especially songwriters, will debate over, which comes first in song creation, the melody or the lyrics? In the early 60s Bob Dylan used his lyrics to ask questions about social justice, focusing on melody second. When the Beatles first started out in the early 60s, they were more about a song's melody, giving much more credence to their lyrics as time progressed in their ten years as a band.For modern day Texas-based country star Pat Green, both are equally important, that is if you know what feeling your trying to convey in the song. And Green should know, he’s been at it since the late 90s.
Over his career, Green has put out seven studio albums, along with 15 of his singles appearing on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart over the years. In fact, his highest peaking hit “Wave on Wave,” reached number 3 from his gold-certified album of the same name. Always looking to create and inspire, Green is at it again with the release of his latest single, “Elvis in Memphis,” which will hit the masses on April 19. We recently had a chance to talk with the veteran country artist about his new release, his song writing style, and the importance of writing an idea down as soon as you have it.
Crystal Wise
Pat Green
FM: Getting straight to it, what was the inception behind your new song, ‘Elvis in Memphis?”
PG: Well, I wrote it quite a while ago. I mean, at least 15, 16 years ago, almost, maybe 20. But it came down to that song and one other song, and it's just some of the things where I went back and revisited what was going on in my life at that time and where I was and the song. I wrote two songs with a guy named Brett James, he's the guy who wrote ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’ amongst other really great songs. And he's a friend of mine. He's a Texas guy. But anyway, these two songs, when we were approaching the writing aspect were slightly similar as far as the power and whatever. ‘Footsteps of Our Fathers’ won out on that record. And so, we went back and looked through my catalog of songs that I hadn't recorded, that I had written that I really liked. You keep those things.
We felt like we could change just a few things in the approach to ‘Elvis in Memphis,’ and I honestly want to say it's every bit as good or better. When we recorded it, it just sounded great in our ears. Everybody in the band, in the production side and management side, agent side, everybody was just like, ‘wow, that's a wonderful departure.’
FM: Is this new song really different from the songs you’ve written in the past?
PG: I don't mean to say I think it's a departure from all my music, but if you look at what Texas country is when it's straight down the middle, it sounds like a take-me-out-to-a-dance-hall kind of thing. It's funny, but it’s the songs that sound like nothing else that have been the most popular for me and my band. Those are the songs that don't sound like pop music, they don't sound … I wouldn't say necessarily like country music, but they sound like me and they sound like the things that I want them to sound like. And my being raised in a family of 10 kids, I mean, there was different music coming out of every room, and so everybody had their own taste, and everybody had their own thing that they were into. So I think that's the collage that makes up the fabric of my music really.
FM: I was talking to a songwriter about this the other day. Do you have to have a melody in mind to put lyrics to? Or do you have lyrics first and put a melody around it? What’s your process?
PG: My dad was the first guy to say that melody comes first. If you have a whole lyric and then try to fit it around … edit it if you will, around a melody, it sometimes sounds really forced. Another way of looking at it is, the melody can dictate the number of syllables that are going to fit in, the words that have to go in there and the rhyme scheme, what sounds good on an upbeat or a downbeat. So yeah, typically I like having an idea. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I go into the songwriting process with no words in my mind when I'm writing a song. You write down ideas all the time, right? I mean, that's kind of the notepad by the bed thing, and that is pretty standard for pretty much everybody in the business. Tons of scraps of paper all over the house and things written on the underside of a napkin somewhere in the drawer. I mean, you never know where you're going to use it, but anyway, that is an easy thing to bridge the gap. Once you sit down with your guitar or your piano and you really start playing it out, that’s when you know what’s missing or what doesn’t fit.”
FM: How did ‘Elvis in Memphis’ come about? Was the song created with melody first or lyrics?
PG: I think that Brett [James], my co-writer had the idea Elvis will be Elvis in Memphis. It was like, man, that's a very easy song to write lyrics around. So we just started really getting closer to the melody and how we wanted to approach it, and then we just kind of started line for line, just pounding it out. That was a very quick song to write. I find that love songs, if you're really in love, love songs are easy to write. And if you're really not in love, if you're really falling out of love, if you're really in pain, it's really easy to write about pain, falling out of love, tear in my beer, all that stuff.
“It's like if you're really in a bad relationship or in a bad place, people will identify with that just as well as people who are in love. I certainly have had my troubles through life, like anybody else, but it's really easy for me to write about how I feel right there. And that's the thing that I learned a long time ago. You got to write about the truth.
FM: What is the theme of this new song?
PG: It's about the evolution of love. The first line is, ‘baby come over here tonight,’ and then that verse ends up with, ‘I've got more planned than a one-night stand. This is going to take the rest of your life.’ I think that's a very candid shot. If you're listening to the lyrics, you get the idea right there and then about what the character in the song is trying to sell, right? He's trying to get the girl to believe what he's saying, ‘We’ll be like Elvis in Memphis, Juliet and Romeo, straight ACEs in Vegas, Elvis in Memphis,’ and then the line in the chorus is ‘make love that lasts forever. We'll hang history on the wall. You see the pictures of the family going up the stairs.’ And I've seen that in my own house. I mean, I have those pictures of me and my wife and kids that go up the stairs to our rooms. And so I think that it's an easy visual throughout the chorus and then the second verse and the rest of it says, ‘I'll take care of this. I'll take care of you. I'll take care of our family.’ But really, It's a love story and I kind of wish there was a line in there where I'd say, ‘hey, there's going to be some weird funky times too.’ But with this song, I'm really just trying to paint a pretty picture. You know like ‘You've got Mail,’ or ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ just the journey into a lifelong relationship.
