Everybody Needs a Good Editor (Right?)
One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is from the movie Amadeus. It comes at a moment when the young composer Mozart is soaring, having just conducted the premiere of a successful new opera. He meets his patron, Emperor Joseph II of Austria, and asks the Emperor what he thought of the piece.
Emperor Joseph II suggested edits to Mozart in Amadeus. Mozart, like all of us, LOVED the idea (apologies for quality; it’s a screenshot; I couldn’t find a still of the scene).
“It’s very good,” the Emperor says. “Of course every now and then…It seems to have – how should one say? – um…too many notes.”
“I don’t understand,” Mozart responds, “There are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required; neither more no less.”
“There are only so many notes one can hear in the course of an evening,” the Emperor concludes. “It’s quality work… (but) there are simply too many notes. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.”
Mozart, exasperated: “Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?”
The Emperor is, of course, a twit (played by the same actor who was the principal in Ferris Buehler’s Day Off). He has no answer to Mozart’s question.
And I have no answer to which songs should be cut from Taylor Swift’s 31-song, 2 hour 2 minute, new, double album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
But I can’t help thinking there are just… too many notes.
I listened to TTPD at the suggestion of my daughter, a lifelong devoted Swiftie who, like millions of others, stayed up to listen to the 16-song initial album, then the 15-song “surprise” bonus tracks, immediately after their midnight release April 19.
And I genuinely liked some of the songs, including “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart,” a song about the pain of performing in front of thousands of people after a breakup; “Florida,” a strange song with a really nice vibe (and a great line for 30-something’s (“my friends all smell like weed or little babies”); and “So Long London,” a dreamy-sounding, achy breakup song written by a really talented, tortured poet.
But there were just too many songs with the same vibe and same instrumentation, and despite her incredible creativity and turns of phrase in describing the different ways she has been hurt by different people in a range of relationships, the themes are remarkably similar.
We all have options in our lives. But you do have to make some choices. Don’t you?
I am in awe that Taylor even has time to write so many notes. Somehow, she manages to travel the world, pour her soul into live concerts, direct music videos, post on social, break up, make up and start new relationships – and still write and record hit after hit after hit. Now 33, she’s been doing it since she was 17, showing off marketing instincts that Don Draper would kill for.
Along the way, she’s reached fame and fortune like no pop star before her, joining the Forbes billionaire list this year (her latest tour alone grossed more than $1 billion in 2023, and it’s still going). She’s had 14 #1 albums that have sold, to date, 114 million copies.
But don’t we all need a good editor in our lives?
Historically, people who write anything publicly have had to deal with editors, who correct, redirect, ask annoying questions and, importantly, cut to meet the size limits on public material.
In my life editors….
· Shrank radio news stories to 30 seconds – because the hole for radio news was 4 minutes and 45 seconds.
· Shrank TV stories to 1:30 – because the time for news on local TV was 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
· Shrank print stories to 500 words – because newspaper pages were 12” x 23.75".”.
Records used to have size limits too. 45 RPM records needed to be no more than 5 minutes a side. 33 RPM albums could only hold 20 minutes of material on each side. Even CD’s could only be 74:33 (a length supposedly chosen because that’s the length of a recording of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony).
All that is no more. In the digital age, news stories don’t have to be published by the few people who buy paper by the ton or ink by the barrel or erect giant broadcast towers, and there are a gazillion electrons available for music recordings of whatever length the artist desires.
But just because stories and songs and albums can be any length now doesn’t mean they should be.
Why am I such a believer in editors? I’ve gotten that lesson from a bunch of different angles, in my work life, play life and spirit life.
· I grew up in an architecture family, with a father who tried to follow the guiding principle of the German designer Mies van der Rohe: “Less is more.” The point of modernism was to keep pruning unnecessary ornaments away from buildings until only the most essential parts remained, and we could see the most essential “truth” of the building.
Mies was talking about architecture, but the same advice applies to writing.
· I studied in a college English department that still revered the concision of its former professor, poet Robert Frost, and still taught William Strunk’s advice from The Elements of Style: “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”
· I sang in a music group whose commitment was to always sing one song less than the audience seemed to want. “Always leave ‘em wanting more so they’ll come back again to hear it.”
· I discovered during my time speechwriting that it was more than twice as hard to write a 10 minute speech than a 20 minute speech. Boiling things down to their essential broth takes a lot more time than just throwing everything in the pot. And it tastes better.
· I’ve learned in every workplace, in marriage, among friends and at sporting events that it’s a good idea not to share every opinion I have on every subject. Bounce them around, workshop them, then see which ones are left when you’re finished. Share the good ones, shelve the bad ones.
· And now I write these posts. The shorter I make them, the more of you read them.
That’s why every fiber of me wants to caution Taylor Swift: make tough choices. A lot of the songs just aren’t that interesting or go on too long: get rid of the clunkers. People don’t need to hear every thought you have had about every relationship you’ve been in.
The numbers on Taylor Swift’s album sales are breathtaking. Editor schmeditor. (chart by Chartmasters)
But every piece of data I’ve seen about the album suggests I must be wrong. “Tortured Poets” sold 1.4 million hard copies the first day! It generated 891 million streams in the US in its first week! It appears that in the world of Swiftophilia, Mies was wrong: more is more.
Maybe she’s Mozart II and I’m Emperor Joseph III, but I can’t help myself: as she herself notes in “Black Dog” on the new album: “Old habits die screaming.”
Let’s leave it at this: maybe Taylor Swift is the only person in the world who doesn’t need a good editor. For the rest of us: find one and put them on speed dial.
References:
Amadeus – “too many notes”: https://youtu.be/dCud8H7z7vU
Capacity of 33 RPM and 45 RPM records: https://www.rpmrecords.dk/blog/vinyl-record-length/#:~:text=45%20RPM%20cut%20can%20fit,low%2Dend%20within%20certain%20limits.
Original and current CD capacity: http://www.osta.org/technology/cdqa7.htm#:~:text=Manufacturers%20commonly%20express%20disc%20capacity,by%20advances%20in%20recording%20technology.
Taylor Swift career sales figures: https://chartmasters.org/taylor-swift-albums-and-songs-sales/
Tortured Poets sales figures: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/arts/music/taylor-swifts-tortured-poets-department-billboard-chart.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb