THE MUSE LIKES TO BE FOLLOWED, NOT PUSHED - David LaMotte & Jasmin Pittman

Friend of The Porch, David LaMotte–singer-songwriter, speaker, and author— joins Porch co-conspirator, Jasmin Pittman, to share a conversation about the surreal experience that sometimes occurs when something we’ve created takes on a life of its own. David and Jasmin also chat about the challenges inherent in the creative process, and making space for the range of emotions that inform and nourish both our work in the world and our very beings. 

Welcome, David. I noticed that you recently got to see Our Town on Broadway, and one of the songs used in the production is a song you contributed to. Can you share about that experience?

We sat down–my wife, my son, and my friend John whom we were staying with. They’d comped us tickets, and we sat in the fifth row…they were really lovely seats. The play is done very sparsely, the set is very empty for a large part. It’s beautifully done. It’s very understated in terms of how they present the play.

The first thing that happens is that one actor walks out onto the stage, sits at a piano, and kind of pensively plinks out a melody. He’s not playing the song, he’s just sort of noodling it. The melody that he’s playing is, “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds.” He does that for about 45 seconds, and then a song comes on over the sound system–big and loud and large—this is the Ethel Barrymore theater, and while that song plays for two minutes, the entire cast of the play walk down through the audience, the aisles, from the wings and make their way to the stage. They’re all lost in their own little worlds, and then you realize that they’re doing something. They’re all praying in different ways and ignoring each other for the most part. They’re praying in their own individual ways and worlds. 

They walk around on the stage praying while this song plays…and the song ends. The stage manager character, who is kind of the narrator of the play, addresses the crowd, and the play goes on from there. 

And that song that plays is a song from a band called Abraham Jam, of which I am one-third. We call it Abraham Jam because it’s three musicians from three of the Abrahamic faiths—a Christian, a Jew, and a Muslim—in a band together. That song that we sing is called “Braided Prayer.” In that song, I’m singing The Lord’s Prayer in Spanish, Dawud Wharnsby is singing Al-Fatiha (the first words of the Quran), and Billy Jonas is singing the Shema, the fundamental prayer of Judaism, in Hebrew. We weave these three together, and so we call it “Braided Prayer.”

We recorded this in 2019 on a studio album we did. We stumbled across it in the studio. We didn’t come to the studio planning to do this. But, Billy had noticed and mentioned to Dawud that there was this resonance between the Fatiha and the Shema, these two fundamental prayers of their faiths. So, they started signing them together, and they turned to me and asked what I could do. I didn’t know at first, but I started singing the Lord’s Prayers. So, we recorded the album, and like many folk album, tens and tens of people listened to it…then a few years later, lots more people listened to it.

It’s remarkable, we still don’t know how they found the song. But they found it, and used our own recording in the play. So, I’m sitting there in the theater and suddenly my own voice is moving out across the theater. It was a surreal and beautiful and moving experience.

It does sound that way. What strikes me is that the three of you walked into your studio–your practice space that day–not knowing what was going to arise out of that moment. Could you speak to that? It seems as though there was something in the relationships that you had with each other that allowed that to come forth, and maybe also, the Muse, or the Spirit…seemed to want to create this thing that would then go on to places you couldn’t have known.

When we went to the recording studio that day, we were at Hollow Reed Studios in Asheville, North Carolina with Chris Rosser at the mixer, it’s not that we didn’t have a plan - we had a lot of other plans. But what so often happens in creative endeavors, something called us in another direction and we set aside “the plan” and did this instead. As I recall, we recorded it the same day we came up with it…which may not be right, but that’s how I remember it. 

I think that embodies so much of the creative process and struggle, which is to show up and make space for things to come. To keep doing the work even when you don’t feel particularly inspired. To show up at the blank page, as so many people have said, and to allow yourself to be, well the word that comes to mind is seduced. To be drawn into this other beautiful thing that wants to happen.

I have a Patreon community that I promise a new song to every month. It is the 31st, today as we speak, and I’m going to write a song between now and midnight. I haven’t done it yet; I don’t know what that song is going to look like. But, I have some ideas, and I have some exercises I go to when I’m not feeling particularly brilliant (which is most of the time), and so I will start off on something and see what happens. One of my mantras is that the muse likes to be followed, but she doesn’t like to be pushed.

There’s this whole dance of keeping your feet on the ground and firmly rooted enough so you don’t fall over, but swaying. Responding to what’s coming at you and dancing with it.

That’s beautiful. I wonder if you could tell us some ways you practice dancing? Or, put it another way, how do you feed your creative soul? Do you have any creative practices that can allow you to drop in, or what are the things that help you make space for the dance?

I do love silence. And I do love music. Music is my favorite drug. I think there’s nothing wrong with listening to other people’s great music when it’s time for you to write. All music inspires all music. You don’t have to worry too terribly much about being derivative…because everything is derivative. When you recombine it in your own spirit and you put out something new, that feels authentic to me.

My friend Jonathan Byrd, a great songwriter…taught me years ago…that when you’re really stuck, one useful thing to do when you need to write a song and you don’t feel particularly inspired is to take a song that you really love and write new words to it. Then take your words, and write new music. And then it’s yours. And sure it came from somewhere, but everything comes from somewhere. All the words that you can speak were given to you by other people, right? 

It’s okay that we’re informed in our art by other art. That’s important to me in terms of acknowledging and welcoming those influences. Also, just being still. It doesn’t always come naturally to me. I need to be intentional about making space. I would love to tell you that I get up every morning, and I meditate for a half-an-hour before I do anything else, but that is not true. Every once in awhile…early in January…

I’m a Quaker by faith, and I love chosen silence, and the power of silence. Which, I distinguish from quiet. Quiet is the lack of noise. Silence is a choice, in the same way that optimism is observational, but hope, you choose. I really do find deep gifts in silence and deep challenge. Because everything I’m running from catches up with me when I stop. 

I love what you’re saying about silence feeding you when you choose to give it the opportunity to feed you and nourish you.

Lastly, I was curious if you want to speak to ways that anyone–and I think all of us live as creative people in one from or another–ways that we can privilege joy and creativity in these times that we’re in.

It’s a hard thing to do. I think of joy as fuel for the work in some ways. And then I stop myself and think, “nope that’s transactional.” Joy is worthy in and of itself. This is not just about what you offer, you are worthy and loved and you deserve joy. Not just as fuel for something you’re going to later do. But because you are. You deserve joy.

In hard times–if you’ve lost somebody, if you’re struggling through political exile and tangible danger, like so many people are right now, it can feel improper to feel joy.

And, I think that if we allow ourselves to succumb to that toxic mentality—that we should feel guilty about being joyful—boy, we are in a death spiral there. I think you deserve to feel everything you feel, whether that’s rage, or anger, or joy, love, frustration, whatever that is…I think we need to feel the things we feel. If we don’t let ourselves feel, we can’t go anywhere healthy, we just can’t. And joy is among those. 

I want to be nourished because I want to be of service, but I also want to remind myself that it’s not just about being of service. Despair leads to inaction, and inaction leads nowhere good in my experience. Not being engaged with your life—and I mean inaction in a large sense, I don’t mean taking a pause to be still, that’s a good thing. But when we slow to a stop and can’t get going again, that’s a tragic loss for the world.

So, I want to cultivate joy, and I want to make space for it. Laugh with my family and my friends…I don’t have a formula to offer, but I do have encouragement to offer—that we choose to make space [for joy].

David LaMotte is a songwriter, speaker and author. As a musician, David has performed over 3500 concerts and released thirteen full-length CDs of primarily original music, touring in all of the fifty states and on five of the seven continents.