‘Spontaneous song’ is a term borrowed from theological discourse, originating in the U.S. and a contemporary phenomenon which can be adequately ‘Googled.’ On doing so, one can find members of Baptist or Gospel congregations engaging in joyous call and response with the minister. These songs are sung as ‘offerings’1 to God, in which the ‘Holy Spirit’ speaks through the congregation. Such ‘devotionals’ have the function of being both a communal activity, and a form of prophecy, which accounts for the conception that spontaneous song holds transformational, even transcendent, properties. When we make songs, of course, there’s always the question of who we are singing to, and why.
Backtracking to the American Civil War (1861-65), slaves on the plantations regularly sang spontaneous songs. It was not uncommon for them to gather in illicit improvisation circles at nights in the woods around the plantations. In common with work and field holler songs which both functioned to punctuate time and thus, relieve the burden of labour by giving it rhythm - spontaneous song was a discourse of freedom; yet, what of ‘freedom’ for the neoliberal or “achievement subject” when the term has become synonymous with “self-exploitation”2 (Han, 2015, 2017, 2020; Varoufakis, 2023).
In this climate, the independent artist, required to be a ‘content provider’, marketer, and social media mogul is expected to never not be on, performing and curating their lives for ‘free’ via platforms which are never for free, at the mercy of fickle algorithms which offer no financial incentive. As it stands, we do not have any contract with social media, and the algorithm is just doing its job.3
A contemporary reclassification of spontaneous song is that of #speedsongs,’ #speedsongwriting, or ‘speed co-writes’, and a basic Google, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest or TikTok exploration shows us that the phenomenon is alive and kicking. Examples are often hosted on channels run by members of Baptist congregations, mostly in the U.S., or by recording artists who are religious, and writing their own songs.
What ‘speed songs’ offer is a convenient, or expedited ‘short-cut’ to writing a song. As ever, the emphasis is on saving time, and cutting out labour, the late capitalist illusion that we can have this, or that, without this or that.
For example, US singer-songwriter, Graham English, is not unusual in offering a free ‘cheat sheet’ as a downloadable PDF in exchange for an email address. I checked out other similar channels and sites, and these PDFs are quite common. Similarly, channels such as those run by YouTuber, Diane Laine, with catchy titles, such as “Write Songs Quick! How to Write a Song in One Hour or Less!” (Laine, 2017)4 are not uncommon. There is clearly a demand for exponential songwriting, then.
On the back of this trend, The Knoydart Retreat (2023), a songwriting retreat based in the remote North of Scotland, for example, are advertising a “speed co-writing retreat” with professional songwriters via their Instagram feed and social media. It is worth questioning who exactly these types of courses are for (considering their cost), and what accounts for this trend. It seems to be that there is an ideological imperative to writing songs quickly, or having someone help you to do so, then, which I would argue is tied to speed and consumption, or ‘the commodification of everything’5 as it has been termed.
If one unravels how ideology functions in terms of desire, (in that one might simultaneously partake in an activity whilst being alleviated of our guilt in doing so) as Žižek (2009)6 repeatedly demonstrates via his often repeated maxim of us wanting coke without the sugar, coffee without the caffeine, and so on., we can have it all.
I sing about this in my song “Forever Chemicals” on my recent album Space Junk (2023), via lyrics on having coffee in Starbucks and clocking the signage above the counter which informs us that by choosing them we can ‘…help save the children of Guatemala / And it’s included for free in the price.’ (Talbot, 2023b).
This kind of ‘passive activism’ is implicit in many of out common chores and functions, i.e. recycling, as initiatives are developed which create the illusion of choice and of being ethical in an unethical world, should we purchase there, instead of over there, when in reality both, or more, companies are owned by the same company, and up we go.
An aside, but in brief anecdote, a friend visited the other day who was telling me about a job she’d been involved in on a caged battery hen farm installing security cameras. Even though all the eggs were from the same farm, egg trays with labels of an assortment of major brands were on the racks ready to be filled.
The contemporary appeal of speed songs taps into the commodification of our desires. In Jenny Holzer’s truisms7, she had a famous sign that read as follows:
These speed songs, co-writes, courses offering us quick and simple solutions to commodities (or privileges) such as ‘writer’s block’, feed into our imperative to save time whilst alleviating us from the burden of labour and to an extent, craft; tapping into our schizophrenic tendencies to both engage in frantic capitalism, yet simultaneously absolve ourselves of the quest. These instances are parts of subcultures seen online which contribute to the ongoing commodification of song in our one second world. I would also say that there is more than a hint of the’ libidinal economy’ (Lyotard, 1993) implicit in such promises of expediency. The morphing of spontaneous song into speed song, from spirituals and utility, even transcendence, to the promise of getting something done quickly, of frantic capitalism, is one possible interpretation of commodification of contemporary songwriting practices in which intros are out, choruses are in. Get straight to the hook! You have less than one second on TikTok, and possibly two seconds on Spotify to grab the listener, before they flick onto the next song on the playlist, YouTube short, reel, or TikTok clip insane for the membrane. As Simone Weil said8: attention is like a form of prayer, and that, along with privacy are our contemporary battlegrounds.
On a related note, my new EP - Blackout Baby - is out today. This sweet thing, full of yearning, comes complete with ten sunset lamp photos by yours truly. Delicate and raw material tenderly mastered by Old Cottage Audio.
Rubin, R. (2023) The creative act: a way of being. London: Canongate.
Han, B.C. (2015) The Burnout Society. CA: Stanford University Press.
Han, B.C. (2017) Psychopolitics. London: Verso.
Varoufakis, Y. (2023) Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. London: Vintage.
Sujon, Z. (2021) “Power and ideology” in The Social Media Age. London: Sage Publishing.
Laine, D. (2017) How to write a song in one hour or less! (Songwriting 101). 5 February. Available at:
Hall, D. (2023). ‘Commodification of everything’ arguments in the social sciences: Variants, specification, evaluation, critique. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 55(3), 544-561.
Wark M. (2019) Capital is Dead. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2009) Violence: Six sideways reflections. London: Profile.
Joselit, D., Simon, J., Salecl, R. & Holzer, J. (1998) Jenny Holzer. London: Phaidon Press.
Weil, S. (1947) Gravity and Grace. London and New York: Routledge.