BMG Songwriter, Recording Artist and ASCAP President/Chairman Paul Williams – HuffPost 7.2.13

[Note: This is a combination of advice for new artists and some informative conversation that might be inspiring.]

Mike Ragogna: You penned “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days And Mondays,” “Old Fashioned Love Song,” “You And Me Against The World, Rainbow Connection” and so many others. What does it feel like, being that guy who wrote all of those songs?

Paul Williams: You know, it’s interesting because I get the benefit of the guy I used to be. There’s a certain point, and I don’t know how quickly it happens after a song is written, but there’s a certain point where it’s almost not yours anymore. I get the credit for it and I get the accolades and I get somebody coming up to me saying, “You know, I got married to ‘Evergreen.’ That’s what I call a heart-payment. Somebody comes up and says, “My little boy is learning to play the piano and the first thing he’s learning to play is “Rainbow Connection.” That’s a heart-connection. Somebody told me yesterday that they played “Rainbow Connection” at their father’s funeral. That’s an amazing compliment. With “Rainbow Connection,” Kenny Ascher and I wrote it for Kermit in 1979. To have somebody walk up to me and say something you did in 1979 has been an important part of their family’s life to the point where it was played at their father’s funeral because it’s his favorite song, the intensity of a compliment like that… There’s something about the elegance of that connection that is so reassuring to the writer.

MR: And as they say, it’s all about the song.

PW: With a song, I think it’s successful because you honestly write about what’s in the center of our chest. It’s something that sometimes is very intimate; sometimes, almost embarrassingly intimate. It’s like we’re writing about things that we feel deeply about and somebody else comes up to you and is like, “I heard that and I felt the same.” That, for many years, was the most powerful way that I connected to other human beings, through that moment when somebody says, “Yeah, I know what you mean when you say ‘let me be the one you run to,” or when I sang, “I can take all the madness,” or “Day after day, I must face a world of strangers where I don’t belong, I’m not that strong.” I had somebody come up and say, “I’ve felt that, too, that’s why I bought the record. Your writing about what I feel means I’m not alone. I’m not weird or different.” I am the same as the person that is enjoying the song.

MR: What’s your advice for new artists?

PW: Authenticity. It always comes back to that. I tried to be David Bowie, but there was already a David Bowie and he was much better at it than I was. My advice is twofold: Creatively, trusting what’s inside you is what we need to hear; don’t try to be anybody else. When “We’ve Only Just Begun” was the number one record, the number one album at the time was In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. You couldn’t get further away from what was commercial than what I wrote with Roger Nichols for that bank commercial, and yet it became a number one record. There’s something about if you write honestly what you feel, other people feel it too. I think what I would also say to them is, “Become activists. Learn about the business, learn about what’s going on with creators’ rights, be willing to dive into that world and be aware of what’s going on.” It’s an amazing time right now. More music’s being played on more devices than ever before in the history of music. It’s a great time, it’s an exciting time. But in the digital world and all, there are challenges, and for somebody starting out, the more they know about what’s going on, the better prepared they are to make the right choices. And I would say don’t lose touch with the mystical element. I’ve always said that I am very Jiminy Cricket about the life I have today and about the things I get to do. I think that the more difficult time men and women are going to have to slosh through as they try to build a career, trust that the talent in the center of your chest was not put there as a burden, it was not put there for you to suffer, it was put there for you to celebrate and for us to celebrate your gifts.