Posted August 9th, 2006 by Sean Williams

Really quick – Jordana and I definitely don’t get in each other’s shit, and with our other writing partner, we totally stay away from each other, even to the semi-colon part. Jordana and Mac have had really inspired musical ideas, and basically *ALL* of their ideas eventually become “my” music (although they don’t always end up in the final shows) (and sometimes when they do, they shouldn’t).

But we’re very clear on keeping the aisles clear. If there’s something we don’t like about, say, a scene, one of us will go to Mac and say “This doesn’t work for me, and here’s why”, and after the last couple of years, those words are enough.

When one of the two of them says “this song doesn’t work for me, and here’s why”, I don’t try to defend the song, I just take the parts of the song I like and try to make a new song.

In one of our rehearsals the other day, somebody mentioned a line that they didn’t like, and Mac said something like “yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t change that, I just really liked the writing…” and that’s how I feel about my music as well. There are some things that I hold on to because I think they are pretty and smart, and that should be enough to justify their existence. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m not.

Jordana is the one most often caught in the cross-ways, because her lyrics have to be musical, but they also advance the story as much as the plot, so she’s got responsibilities on both sides. Which means, it’s harder for her not to step on toes, she has to give Mac notes about lines the characters are saying, either because they don’t match the motivation of her lyrics or if they cover ground her lyrics are about to cover in the song, and she has to give me notes if the song seems like it’s creating a mood the the scene doesn’t call for.

I’ll write more about our process later, it’s fun to talk about, but this is just a response to Ian’s Blog