Jim Robinson

Jim Robinson

Song re-writing, psychotherapy & following the muse

I’ve had the great pleasure of producing and co-producing nine full length albums with Jim. One of the things I most enjoy aside from our many hours of conversation about songwriting, therapy, relationships, life (I think we talk as much as we work), is the fact that every project has something different. Some artists make one record over and over. They’ve found their niche. Their comfort zone. They know what they want to say and how they want to say it. And we love them for that very reason. Their comfort zone becomes one of our comfort zones.

This is not Jim. Though he may have a penchant for a particular style of songwriting, he most certainly does not allow his creative expression to be limited by a fondness for a single type of music. He has made several country records, a world music record, a roots record, a synth infused singer/songwriter record, and his latest release is (as I like to call it) a contemporary cinematic Jungian anti-folk urban cowboy music album.

After completing this ninth recording, I thought it would be fun to sit down and ask Jim a few questions about the process and the project.

JASON: You’re a prolific songwriter with a catalogue of nine full length recordings behind you, someone who has written many hundreds of songs. Was there something different about this latest release or was it simply borne of this unrelenting desire you have to create?

JIM: What was different about this collection of songs was that while the first two songs were written before we started recording with a particular direction in mind the rest were all written over the subsequent two year recording period. The songs were selected from among others I was writing at the time because they were cinematic in nature, came directly from dreams I had, poems I came across in my reading, or from poetic phrases which caught my attention and sparked my imagination. Another difference was that you who produced the CD, had a hand in writing the music in five of the songs. You could say together we made this CD; you could also say the music had and led us in its own direction.

JASON: Why songwriting? Why music? You have had and continue to have a successful career as a respected therapist, with what I understand to be a Jungian leaning philosophy and style. Was it the music that brought you to therapy, or vice versa, or is songwriting your therapy?

JIM: The art of practicing psychotherapy and the art of songwriting have a lot in common. The important creative answers sought cannot be found by logical thinking but by being emotionally as honest as possible. Nothing against logical thinking intended here. However both arts are practices in  observance of and attending to life itself in all its complexity. The insight or new music emerges as a gift from the tension or dance of opposites (i.e. old and new, past and future). Patience is a necessary, important  virtue to develop, something songwriting encourages you not to forget.

JASON: Many songwriters have a single style of writing, whereas some experience the world and relate it back to us from a personal perspective, others take snapshots of what they see and we are left to decide how we feel. You on the other hand seem comfortable doing both. Some of your records show us the places you grew up and people you grew up with, while others take us deeper beneath the surface, this latest release falling into that latter category. Is this a conscious decision on your part?

JIM: Pretty random on one level. I can call it random or I can also say I'm following an intuition which isn't random at all  if I'm paying attention. It could be called following the muse or that still small voice or just taking a shot in the dark. Sometimes those ventures lead nowhere interesting but sometimes if I'm lucky a song tumbles out all of a piece. That's rare though. Songwriting, as many songwriters would attest, is really song re-writing until you find, as Picasso said about his painting, a good place to stop. 

JASON: Some of your earlier work could be categorized as country influenced folk, with a simpler production style whereas “The Ghosts Win” is more “contemporary cinematic Jungian anti-folk urban cowboy music” with a full band and what at times sounds like a twenty piece orchestra. Can we expect to see the Jim Robinson band tearing it up with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra any time soon?  

JIM: These songs, like practically all my songs, can be played on acoustic guitar and sung solo. In fact, for the most part as a singer songwriter that's how I perform solo. When the songs are recorded by a musician/producer as imaginative, creative and talented as you the sky's the limit and the songs at times appear to be comfortable with and benefit from many voices and many instruments. As the Jungain analyst James Hollis would say, "Whodathunkit?"

JASON: Final question. In this current “fast paced, no one has time to listen to anything beyond the first few seconds” world we now live in, is there one song from “The Ghosts Win” to start with, that you feel might draw us into listening to the whole album and why?

JIM: I hesitate to choose because each song has its own merit but I understand  the thought behind your question: I'd say maybe  the title track "The Ghosts Win" just because it speaks to the idea that if we're living lives governed by the ghosts of our past we may not be living our current  life most fully or most authentically. In a way this song is about the issue of re-uniting with parts of myself that I've lost touch with, denied, or left behind. Hope lies in the awareness we bring to that fact - because that awareness both frees and heals us. 

P. S. I've read all of James Hollis's books. He's a Jungian analyst now practicing in Washington D.C. I’ve long been fascinated with his ability to articulate Jung's ideas about individuation in terms which are both profound and understandable. Certain phrases from poems, plays, Hollis's writings and Jung's as well resonated with me and in a few songs I found myself riffing on the ideas generated by these nuggets of wisdom.