Images Of Peter: Finding Peter Godwin, Part Two

Popshifter: Sonically Sunset Rise does resemble your older works. . . obviously the voice is exactly the same, and lyrically you express yourself quite poetically (to me in a way reminiscent of the lyrics of the first Metro album). Were there any poets or writers who may have inspired you lyrically, past or present? Do you find that it is cathartic—or difficult—to express lyrics, especially ones which you might find personal?

Peter Godwin: I feel that Sunset Rise is in a way the 21st century reincarnation of the spirit of the first Metro record, and my Correspondence solo album. I know that Johnson had “Art Of Love” in his head (his personal favorite of my solo stuff), when he was working on this album.

It really is a kind of spiritual accident rather than any cool calculation.

Body Heat 1981,

There is a movie that could include “Criminal World,” “Art Of Love” and “Skin.” Probably a film noir shot in color—like Body Heat! There are stories behind the song stories. To me it’s as if they are trailers for longer tales. Fragments that evoke a theme and an atmosphere, but only tease a narrative. . .

A lot of poetry does that and I love poetry and such a diversity of it, it would be hard to know where to begin. I’ve already mentioned a few earlier in this interview.

Poems that evoke a bigger story, that I have loved? The list could range from “somewhere i have never travelled”—an awesome e. e. cummings poem—to “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” by the wonderful John Donne, one of my favorite English poets. But there are so many, because I so love the medium. . . I don’t want to reel off a long list.

I never suffer in dealing with personal stories through song. Actually, that process is so healing and somehow makes sense of my emotional life. The way the lyrics relate to my autobiography varies a lot.

Some songs are almost reportage in their telling; some are a fusion of more than one experience; others grow from a factual beginning to a fantasy denouement; some are yearnings, some are from dreams. Perhaps the strangest category are the songs which are prophecies.

For example, when I wrote “The Art Of Love,” I didn’t really recognize it or know where it came from. Three years later I found myself singing the song on a promotional tour in Greece. And I found myself in the middle of a wonderful story, involving two women, and suddenly I had this revelation that the song was the story of what was happening as if it had been a prophecy. . . I can’t give more details. But that was an amazing feeling, that a song could prophecy a story in “real life,” I’m talking about a very unusual story. . .

I think that songwriting and making music in general are cathartic in a magical and positive way. I think Aristotle would probably choose this medium over theater to achieve Catharsis, if he were around today. . .

Click here to read more from Peter Godwin on. . .

Music Video Influences
Maturing inspirations
Poetry and Collaboration
Artistic suffocation
Chemistry and Alchemy
Old souls
Catharsis
Changes
Transcending technology
Everything Is Possible

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