The following article appears in the Sept.-Nov. '98 issue of FolkNotes.

The Common Threads Interview: Dana "Short Order" Cooke

While music remains the focus of the Common Threads radio show (Sunday afternoons on FM-88, WAER), interviews with the songwriters behind the music also constitute an important part of the show's special offerings. Here are excerpts of an interview conducted by the show's host, Larry Hoyt, with local singer-songwriter Dana "Short Order" Cooke.

Q: We just played your tune, "Cynical Love Song," an example of how you take a fairly common topic and put your own spin on it. How does that come about?

A: There's no one way, certainly, but a lot of times it has to do with that attitude question. It's not so much that you've come up with an idea as subject matter for a song, but (you need) some sort of 'take' or 'spin' or attitude. For example, the CD's title cut, "Wildman" is a song about being trapped by married life, but it jumps right into the perspective of a guy who actually ran away from it all and went off and lived in the woods. You could write a lot of typical songs about feeling trapped by your life, but jumping right into a narrative of a guy who abandoned his family somehow freshened it up. It comes down to the right approach for the topic.

Q: How did you get started songwriting and how many years have you been doing this?

A: I've been playing guitar and writing songs for maybe ten years. I got into it mostly just because I wanted to see if I could do it. Any time I enjoy any art form, I'm always kind of inclined to see if I could do that too. For a while I was doing it totally for fun. I'd been doing it for a few years before my friends and my wife said "these are starting to turn out pretty good and you should really get out and do these for people." I sort of backed into it, it's nothing I intended to do, and I got into it later in life.

Q: So how long have you been playing out?

A: I've only been performing for about three years.

Q: When you released your first CD, was there a big demand for it at the time?

A: Yes, as a matter of fact . . . No. No, actually, you can't write songs without wondering what they'd sound like produced. It grows out of what you're doing, the songs start to take on a life of their own in your head, and you get curious about what more effect they might have if they were produced a little bit. Of course, that's not excuse enough to put the money and effort into it. I'm also viewing the album as an opportunity to 'step up' in terms of how involved I am in this, the extent to which I play out. It's a rather strange reality in this day and age that you don't really have your tenderfoot badge unless you have an album CD. That was the more practical inspiration. But I think you'll find any singer/songwriter just itchin' to get some of this stuff recorded, just to see how it would come out.

This page maintained by Dana Cooke. E-mail me at djcooke@aiusa.com.