Robert Lamm: Writing For Writing’s Sake

Robert Lamm considers his success with Chicago the jumping off point for his songwriting.  With hits like “Saturday In The Park,” “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,” and “25 or 6 to 4,” (standards among rock fans) Lamm has been venturing into other songwriting projects that allow him to go beyond the confines of the group.

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Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1944, Lamm moved with his mother to Chicago when he was 15.  There he began taking music lessons with his interests encompassing everything from Thelonius Monk to Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye.Robert Lamm considers his success with Chicago the jumping off point for his songwriting.  With hits like “Saturday In The Park,” “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,” and “25 or 6 to 4,” (standards among rock fans) Lamm has been venturing into other songwriting projects that allow him to go beyond the confines of the group.

Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1944, Lamm moved with his mother to Chicago when he was 15.  There he began taking music lessons with his interests encompassing everything from Thelonius Monk to Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye.

In 1967, he joined a brass-oriented rock’n’roll band, and experimental group that soon evolved into Chicago.  Lamm quickly emerged as one of the group’s most prolific songwriters, placing songs on albums that were picked as singles and went on to become rock classics.

As Chicago celebrates its 30th anniversary, Lamm finds himself in the middle of recording a third solo album and working on a trio project with Gerry Beckley of America and Carl Wilson from the Beach Boys.  Calling themselves Beckley-Lamm-Wilson, the three hope to have an album out sometime this year, and Lamm’s solo project will be released in the fall.

Lamm keeps a working file of ideas and once he’s composed a piece of music, he matches ideas he already has or writes lyrics to fit the mood of the piece.  For his upcoming project, tentatively titled In My Head, Lamm says the songs are either personal or his own observations or opinions.

“Being a city kid, stylistically I am drawn to urban music.  So while some of the tracks are more organic sounding and were tracked with live musicians, the bulk of it I’m using loops and samples combined with musicians,” he explains.  “I supposed it’s my nature to be a little jazzy, at least other people would call it that, but to me it’s not.  I think there’s an urban hip-hoppy thing about it.”

Lamm writes primarily at the keyboard, and says two things drive his work.

“One is of course my harmonic approach which I think is unique.  It certainly has been formed and molded by my very early years listening to everybody from Antonio Carlos Jobim to Thelonius Monk to Burt Bacharach.  I grew up in the era of Motown and the Beatles so all of that is in there too.”

“I start from playing or inventing chord changes.  For me the rhythm element is real important, either as the element that drives and suggests how the melody goes or even suggesting the mood or motif that I place the song in.  Usually this all comes before the lyrics.”

“I keep a working file of lyrics ideas, and sometimes the lyric ideas are fairly complete even though I don’t have any music to go with them.  So sometimes I’ll see if there’s anything sitting in the file to complement the musical mood, or even if one line would fit, going to be about lyrically until I’m four lines into it.  You start with by the end of four lines it should be fairly connected as to where subconscious to shake the conscious.”

Lamm divides his time between Manhattan, NY and Santa Monica, CA, so he has to look carefully at his schedule each week to see where he’s going to be and when and where he might fulfill the need to write.

“I have a very active life, and I’m blessed with a great relationship and kids, and I’m very busy with Chicago.  So I’ll say to myself at the beginning of the week, I know I’ve got Monday, Tuesday and Friday where I don’t have to be anywhere, so that looks pretty good for working.”

“At some point I’ll sit down and just start, see where I left off last time.  I tend to work pretty slowly.  I just finished something in New York last week that I was co-writing with Walter Parks, who is part of a band called The Mudes, kind of an alternative folk album and write with them.  I’d say about three months ago we got together and started something, and whenever I had any time I whittled away at it because it was a cumbersome musical idea and I had to shape it into something that had to be a song, and I wrote the lyrics as well. I’m not saying I worked everyday for three months, but I lived everyday nibbling at it and when I was finished I was very happy with it.”

While he has gone through various stages of writing alone and co-writing, Lamm says he is entering one of the solo stages again.

“For a long time I didn’t write with anyone and then it seemed like, starting in the mid-80s, it was something many people were doing.  I started collaborating with people, made some great friendships, and have written a number of songs that were very interesting.  I’ve just now started to not do that and see if I can remember how to write myself.  Most of my biggest hits, successful songs, were written alone and now that I’ve started doing it again, it’s very satisfying.”

Lest anyone sees this and thinks Lamm never plans to co-write again, he hastens to add, “But I’m very much open to writing with others, especially writers I admire.  There are a ton of guys I’d be honored to sit in the same room with.  I’d like to see what writing with Dave Matthews would be like, or somebody like Peter Gabriel.  I would like to see what working with Babyface would be like.  I like so much the work that they’ve done; I think that would be a challenge and an interesting fit to co-write with them.”

Lamm’s involvement with The Mudes illustrates his passion for learning about new music and keeping up with what is going on in all musical genres.  It’s also what his him wondering if Chicago isn’t being too conservative in their current musical approach.

“In terms of the newer things that are being recorded [by Chicago], it is kind of not where I want to go, so I’m trying to be of service in the context of the band by being helpful and loyal, because it’s important to them and me.  There’s not really a problem in trying to decide which song is right for Chicago and which is not, because the band is moving away from where I would be directing my writing.  The music they’re doing now is territory that’s been covered as far as I’m concerned.  I would say that the last time that the band was really kind of looking to break new ground was in 1993 and 1994, when we recorded an album that was kind of edgy and to which I contributed five or six songs.  The album turned out great and it was never released.  But that’s a whole different discussion about music business and record companies.

“I was very happy with my writing, and even then I think what had changed for that brief time was that I was expressing some interesting new music, able to kind of get into personal statements lyrically, and it was comfortable for that project.  Where the band is moving now is more into a pop thing, less personality in lyrics… closer to what the band was doing in the 80s which I consider real pop.”

Lamm feels he is able to move forward with his music through the individual project with which he’s become involved.  “I’ve always been kind of a radical hot head and I would just as soon move ahead and whoever can’t keep up that’s just too bad,” he says.  “That’s an arrogant stance, but that’s really how I feel, and that’s why I’m determined to move on with my solo work.  It’s really important for me.  I’ve come to the part of my life where how I feel about my work is more important than anything.”

Lyrics from his most recent album, Life Is Good In My Neighborhood, address strife in foreign countries, problems in our own neighborhoods, the love of a partner and love as the answer to many of the world’s problems and needs.  The lyrics come from Lamm’s observations and are very personal to him, yet he says it is not difficult for him to lay out his emotions for the world to see.

“I don’t find it difficult to write those kind of lyrics,” he emphasizes.  “If we’re talking lyrically, I think when I talk about how I really feel about the people around me in my life, whether it’s positive or not, then that’s what I’m gonna write about.  If I’m concerned about a friend of mine’s lifestyle and I feel like he’s heading down a dead end street, then I’m gonna write about that and I’m not gonna hold it back.  I’ll show it to him and take my lumps.”

In looking back at all his accomplishments, Lamm still sees songwriting as the ultimate high for him.

“For me the biggest thrill has always been discovering that one can write a song,” he says.  “It’s a major sell for your friends.  And that hasn’t changed.  I’ve always felt that what happens to the song after it’s written, after it’s recorded, is kind of out of one’s hands and out of one’s control.  Anything that happens, whether they’re huge hits or not, is incidental or accidental.  So I think for me, the songs that I’ve written that are very popular, I’m very grateful for, but it doesn’t put any additional pressure on me for what I write now.  The enjoyment and thrill of discovering a new group of chord changes and a new way to express my feelings or my thoughts is really the thrill of it, really what motivates me.  I’ve really adjusted to the notion that everything else is out of my control.  I enjoy having a top ten song as much as the next man, but that’s not what drives me.”

So Lamm would probably write whether or not the song ever has a chance of getting cut?  “Yes that’s really what I’ve been doing for a while,” Lamm agrees.  “There have always been a few of my songs on most of the Chicago albums, but it’s been a while since one of my songs has been a single, and that’s just the way it is.  But then having said that, I have to say that I became disappointed in the last five years especially that, given the opportunity that the success of the band has afforded us, we’re not out there taking more chances.  That’s why I’m into doing my solo work.”

As a songwriter many lessons have been learned, Lamm says one of the best ones happened early in his career.

“The best songs are songs that ring true to other people.  I remember a long time ago Chicago was doing an album with producer Tom Dowd and I had written a song called “Doing Business” and in the lyrics I was whining about how tough it was to be a good rock star.  Tom looked at the lyrics and said ‘these are good lyrics, but only 20 people in the entire world will relate to this, and the rest won’t, so re-write them.’  I think that people have to, on some level, lyrically relate to what you’re writing about.”

“But you definitely must write about what you know, even if it’s something as horrible as your own pain.  You must do that rather than total fiction, because it won’t ring true otherwise.”

Another piece of advice Lamm offers is to hang onto your publishing.  Though he has rarely pitched to other artists in the past, that is about to change for him, and he’s glad he took the advice of lawyers for Chicago early in the group’s career.

“About five years down the road of having lots of success, at the point where the band was re-negotiating with the record company, attorneys suggested to us that we might want to hang on to our own publishing.  So we also re-negotiated with our original publisher the right to our early work and 100% of our songs from that point on.  And once in a while a large publisher offers me a large amount of money, and I think maybe I want to pay off the mortgage, but I’ve been stubborn about hanging onto my publishing, and I think that’s turned out to be the smartest thing I can do.”


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