Christian Lee Hutson Is Writing Songs Like a Bird on Rollercoaster

There is no mistaking a Christian Lee Hutson song. With a hushed and tender voice, he recites sincere and sardonic poetry over masterful guitar parts. A stereotypical singer-songwriter summons the deepest, darkest, most personal truths; Hutson lends his compassionate ear and tells the stories of those who would never dream of sharing them. Hutson’s songs feel intimate, an inside joke with no punch line. Is this a mundane moment or life’s greatest tragedy? Add in some melodic fingerpicking that sounds effortless, but isn’t (just look up the countless guitarists on YouTube struggling unsuccessfully to emulate his style). Hutson gives us more than a story. And that “bird on a rollercoaster” stuff from the headline? We’ll get there.

I caught up with Hutson by phone around the release of Paradise Pop. 10 (Deluxe)—which features fresh, intimate takes on songs from his catalog—to talk about melody, the stripped-down tracks, and his “magical” Martin 00-18V.

Do you have a typical songwriting arc?

I usually start with a melody that pops into my head. These days I have melodies happening while I’m asleep, in my dreams. When there’s one that’s really strong, it will wake me up. Then I’ll record myself singing that melody, and slowly figure out what chord changes I want to put over it. I think about things a lot in terms of bass and melody. My thumb will try and find a nice bass line, and my other fingers find the melody.

What was the first fingerstyle guitar stuff you learned?

I started learning fingerstyle with the classic folk stuff: “Freight Train,” and “Don’t think Twice, It’s Alright.” I meet young guitarists and I’m comforted to learn they are still learning these tunes.

Then I got really into John Prine and Elliot Smith, the latter of which showed me that you could do stuff that wasn’t just I-IV-V. Listening to Elliot Smith showed me that there was more music in the guitar than it seems sometimes.

I saw you play in San Francisco, right after Quitters came out, and I was blown away by the guitar parts you were playing. They were so much more involved than on the album.

I wrote and recorded Quitters so fast, in something like 10 days. So when we started the songs night after night, I kept finding new fun little things circus tricks to do on guitar.

I remember thinking “it’s like he is playing the piano!”

I try to think about the guitar like a piano. I’m not a very good piano player, but five or so years ago I was getting all this piano sheet music by Harold Arlen and Randy Newman. I’d find pieces with interesting voice leading and try to learn them. I’d sit at the piano and figure out what was happening, and how much of it I could do on the guitar.

How do you approach voice leading?

I picture it like there’s a bird; the music, the chord changes and the bass movement, is a big bird, and on top of the bird is a another, smaller bird singing the melody. The melody sits on top of the music, or it should, and at times it will drag or shift, or duck beneath the wings. Sometimes you have to move the melody on guitar because you run out of space [laughs].

On the deluxe edition of Paradise Pop. 10 these big songs are getting pared down to just guitar and fiddle. Does changing the instrumentation change the nature of the songs?

It probably does! But I’m less aware of it. One of the main reasons to have these versions on the deluxe version was just that I like showing how the songs started. I wanted to share versions that sounded like the songs when I was originally writing them. I had finished touring the album; it was just me on acoustic guitar and my friend Odessa [Jorgenson] on fiddle. It’s such a nice delivery system of a song.

I think I read a quote from you about lyrics being the hardest part of the song, that they are the last piece of the puzzle. Is that right?

Lyrics feel like a very separate process. I get to a point where the music exists and the lyrics exist. Then I start picking out of this invisible bag of lyrics to see what fits with the music.

When I’m writing with other people, a common problem that will arise is that you find a nice lyric, but it doesn’t sound like how anyone would say anything. So you find something you’d want to say, figure out how you would say it.

But then that lyric doesn’t always work in the song. If the melody is like a rollercoaster, sometimes the lyrics go off the rails when you send it down the track. So you rewrite the lyric in a way that gives the smoothest ride.

Sometimes people talk about songwriters being literary, and what they mean is that they’re very verbose or use a lot of florid language. On the other hand, you write in the common vernacular but your songs seem informed by literature.

I read a lot of poetry and fiction, I used to be allergic to older, pastoral writing. Recently I’ve been finding myself looking back at that and challenging myself to find what still connects for me. Which can lead to new ways of exploring old ideas.

Have you read A Swim in a Pond in the Rain [George Saunders’ book exploring classic Russian literature and how people share and understand stories]?

I did, yeah. I love that book. George Saunders is one of my favorites.

I was thinking about his stories while listening to the new record. I sense a common approach in storytelling; a way of approaching characters that feels empathetic and grounded.

I heard Saunders on an episode of the Book Exploder podcast. Listening to him talk about his characters, it was similar to how I think about mine. He writes with a lot of kindness and understanding about people who are sometimes going through really ugly moments in their life. I am really interested in hope. And I think that we are maybe similar in that way.

Do you try to inhabit the subjects of the songs you write? Do you do method writing?

Maybe in my head a little bit. With method acting it’s often like, “I’m playing a guy with insomnia, I’m gonna force myself not to sleep…” I don’t do things in that way. Writing songs is torturous enough at times, without having to live them. I imagine what something would feel like, and connect that to something that I have felt, or I’ve observed someone else feeling.

There is a reference to a Sam Shepard play in “After Hours”

There are a couple artists from that generation that I really admire, Sam Shepard, Kris Kristofferson, They had these versions of masculinity that were real; they weren’t threatening. True West [the Shepard play] explores this relationship, two people who are so close, but are just missing each other. That relationship interests me.

What’s great about people like Sam Shepard is they were willing to look at these difficult, complex feelings and problems. I’m inspired by people who are brave enough to look at a problem, like jealousy or possessiveness, and are willing to write about it in a meaningful way.

Your three big albums [Paradise Pop. 10, Quitters, Beginners] , are they related? Do they share themes?

There aren’t intentional themes on the albums, but it’s probably more psychologically revealing than I would ever realize. When I’m on tour, playing songs off all three records, I start seeing themes: I’m obsessed with the past, I’m obsessed with time. Somebody once told me I’m obsessed with “daddies and mommies.”

I was going to say “truth and lies” might be another theme.

Yes! A big theme of my life, and all of our lives. I have an obsession with truth and lies, for sure. I think Beginners and Quitters were companions because I started working on all the songs for both those records around the same time. And Paradise Pop. 10, feels different to me. It was a lot of a really fresh stuff.

What guitar did you use on the new record?

I have one guitar that I’ve used on almost everything. It’s a 2010 Martin 00-18V. This one is really good, it’s been my magical guitar that I’ve just really bonded with. I take it on tour, I record with it.

Can you tell me more about your bond with the guitar?

It’s really responsive to me and its sound and tone is so even. I risk sounding weird here, like I’m anthropomorphizing a piece of wood, but it feels like the guitar talks back to me. But the reason I said it’s magical, is well, Delta airlines destroyed it on a flight. Like completely destroyed it. It looked like they took the guitar out of the flight case and jumped on it. It had to be almost completely rebuilt, and it plays exactly the same as it did before. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never played another guitar like it.