Willis Alan Ramsey was only 21 when he released his self-titled debut album in 1972. Its best-known song, “Muskrat Candlelight,” became a major hit as “Muskrat Love” recorded by Captain & Tennille. The album also made a profound impression on a young Lyle Lovett, who learned every song, attended Ramsey’s shows and even bought the same tennis shoes. As Lovett later put it, “I wanted to be Willis Alan Ramsey.”
Fifty-four years later, Ramsey has yet to release a second album. As he explained during a conversation with Little Village, “The second album turned out to be way more problematic than I had planned on. So I’ve just skipped the second album and I’m going straight to the third album.”
Ramsey is set to kick off the Englert’s Iowa City Songwriters Festival this Wednesday with Sam Knutson at the James Theater. In anticipation of the opening festivities, LV talked with Ramsey about getting into music, having a literal, messy drawer of ideas and why you can’t be too specific when writing songs.
Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into songwriting?
In 9th grade I was in a folk trio, and one of the players started writing songs after his parents got a divorce, channeling his feelings into songs. And he got to be quite good, so when we played shows, after the last song he’d go up and say, “Here’s another song I wrote.” And it got to be kinda embarrassing after a while.
Why embarrassing?
Well, he wasn’t an unattractive guy, and when he sang his song, the girls got all moony over him and everything, and I said, “This is not a good trend.”
You wanted to get in on that moony action.
Yes I did. So I asked him how he wrote his songs, and he told me, “All of them are gonna be bad at first, but just keep doing it, and you’ll figure it out.” And he’s primarily the reason I started writing, and he was right: a lot of them were bad and went by the wayside, but they did get better over time.
Is there a particular lyric or verse you’ve written that you’re especially proud of?
Well, I don’t ultimately think I’ve written anything. I feel like my role is a scribe to the thoughts and ideas and inspirations that pop into my head or come from… somewhere else. Most really good songwriters I admire feel similar: like they’ve been given this information and taken dictation.
Townes Van Zandt, a well-known songwriter I knew back in Texas, is a perfect example. He said the songs just kinda dropped down from the sky on his head, and he just wrote them down.
Of the songs that have fallen out of the sky and landed on you, are there any particular lyrics you’re especially glad to have dictated?
Yeah, I have a lot of them. A whole lot of them. Let’s see, “Geraldine the Honeybee.” There’s a line in the verse:
Petal child, growin’ wild and even though she’s livin’ in a compost pile / She’s my glitter and my gold.
That’s one of my favorite songs in particular because it feels right in the mouth. But there’s also that particular line about the compost pile. It’s the celebration of the fact that this honeybee found this beautiful flower growing in a compost pile, and not necessarily in a garden.
I appreciate the sentiment of being a conduit for the songs, but divine inspiration can be a bit unreliable. How much of your songwriting is letting the song come to you versus putting your butt in the chair?
Probably the longest song that it’s ever taken me to write is a song called “Mockingbird Blues,” which took about 35 years.
Where did the song start, and how did it change over those 35 years?
It started off on the keyboard. Ray Charles is probably my biggest musical hero of all, and so I started fooling around on this upright piano that was in a dining hall next to a venue, messing around with some blues voicings. And then I transposed it to guitar and started putting in some passing chords, which I thought Ray might put in. But the lyrics and the whole subject of the song changed over the years, and it ended more like a blues guitar song.
When a song isn’t working, do you usually know what’s wrong, or do you just know something’s missing?
I’m pretty tough on myself as a writer, and if it doesn’t please me, I’m not gonna finish it for somebody else. If there’s some sort of impasse I am able to get through and problem solve, then of course I’ll do that. Other times, if I can’t see a path forward, then I’ll just put it in my drawer and get back to it again.
Wait, you have an actual drawer?
The drawer is a mess. Little bits of paper, sheets and sheets of lyrics, bits of tape recordings, just hundreds of ideas and things. It’s a big drawer.
Do you have a white whale in there? One song you especially want to finish?
I have a considerable amount of white whales.
You’ve got a pod of white whales.
Yeah. I get bored easily, and if it doesn’t retain my interest, I go on to something else. But you have to stay open and avail yourself of whatever tools you have in terms of harmony, lyrics and rhythm.
What does staying open mean to you?
It’s about what happens after you’ve gotten the initial idea or inspiration. How does it develop if it has a volition of its own, an energy of its own? How do you ride that white whale? If you don’t chase after it too hard, if you just let it develop and run — or swim along, or whatever metaphor you want — it’ll come in one way or another. It might not be the thing you expected, but being a musician is all about being flexible and continually re-plotting your expectations.
You co-wrote two of Lyle Lovett’s best-known songs, “You’re Not From Texas” and “North Dakota.” How did those collaborations come about?
“North Dakota” was just an accident. I’d sent him this musical idea that was pretty much all of the music and the chorus of, “If you love me, say I love you. If you love me, say I do.” And he really got right on that and then knocked out some more verses to it.
“You’re Not From Texas” was actually Allison Rogers’ idea and line. We were all on tour together, and Lyle had a girlfriend with him on a bus filled with Texas musicians. She went on a rant about how great Texans think their state is, saying stuff like, “Texans even talk about how great their state’s shape is.”
One night back at Lyle’s hotel, we were kinda shaking our heads about it, when Lyle picked up a guitar and started playing the chords to “She’s Hot to Go.” That’s when Allison held up her finger and went, “That’s right. You’re not from Texas. That’s right.” And Lyle stopped, and we both just stared at her, and we went, “Holy shit.”
Between the three of us, I think we wrote about 35, 40 verses that night. Allison Rogers is a brilliant musician and writer, and that was really her song idea. Lyle and I just contributed to it, with Lyle adding the line “But Texas wants you anyway” at the end.
That’s a lot of verses! I’m working on a song with more verses than I can possibly use. Any advice on how to whittle them down without losing what they’re trying to say?
I have found ways to consolidate and be more concise and get more to the point of the song. Once I let it incubate for a while, I go back and figure out a way to say the same thing with fewer lyrics.
And you can’t be too literal. You have to figure out a way to express something in a novel way that can allude to a specific concept, but if it’s too specific and too literal, it becomes boring and prosaic.
Interesting. So sometimes, to make a song more concrete, it helps to make it more abstract.
Exactly. Like one of my songs, “Desiree,” is about a relationship that’s falling apart. And the chorus is, “Desiree, the sand and seas can’t wash away.”
So that’s as general as a chorus can be, but following the first chorus, the third verse is, “Kiss as sweet as sugarcane. The river ran, the Pontchartrain.” So that’s, you know — it’s more specific, but it’s also abstracted.
I think the best songs are the ones that don’t do anything that’s been done before. That’s what I like about the Lennon/McCartney songs. They used Western harmony in a completely new and innovative way. And [John] Prine did that, but he did it in the margins.
What qualities does a song need to have to really matter to someone?
You can’t just give them morsels. You have to give them a sandwich. You gotta give them a meal to make them think.
There’s something about the magic of language and our innate desire to connect and to understand that just delivers a new perspective. And again, it can’t be too specific because people need to rewrite the song in their own minds so that it’s meaningful to them.
Really great literature does that as well. We all draw certain implications from a book or a poem or a song that others might not get. And that’s what makes it compelling. Plus, there’s nothing more compelling than great rhythms and great harmony. You add that all up, and it’s pretty powerful stuff.
Any parting advice for aspiring songwriters?
There’s a term I heard when I was in Nashville recording a soundtrack. The owner of the studio was Chip Young, a well-known session player who used to be in Elvis Presley’s band.
I was pushing for a certain feel on something, and I was in the control room. I got off the talkback mic to the musicians, turned around to Chip and said, “What would you suggest, Chip? What should I tell them?”
And he said, “Man, just let it live, Willis.”
So in other words, there is a weight in the thing being created, and it is going to, of its own volition, become its own thing. And you have to allow it to do that. If you push it too much, it’s just not going to do what it needs to do.
So I’ve always loved that phrase, “Just let it live.” Whether it applies to writing, production or really anything.
