Inside The Message: Writing Songs After John Berger

Abstract

The article discusses John Berger’s writing on language and his vision of the world as speaking different ‘texts,’ as well as revisiting his writing on music and song with this in mind. Berger’s characterisation of language, and the ‘space’ of the song, as organic and mutable is examined, and parallels are drawn with Bertrand Belin’s depiction of the song as a ‘biotope’ in which words are alive and interact with music. These ideas are then applied to the process of songwriting, with a discussion of how they may be put into practice when it comes to the intuitive business of writing the different parts of a song, correcting them as you go, and observing the way they interact with one another to create an identifiable world.

Keywords

• John Berger
• language
• songwriting
• music
• song
• Bertrand Belin