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A JCPL librarian interviews published writers about their favorite writing prompts—exercises that can help inspire, focus, and improve your creative writing. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, a novelist, essayist, or poet, you’ll find ideas and advice to motivate you to keep writing. A partnership with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
Propt to Page, Episode 48: Kevin Holm-Hudson
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Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Prompt to Page podcast, a partnership between the Jessamine County Public Library and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. I'm your host, librarian and poet, Carrie Green. Each episode we interview a published writer who shares their favorite writing prompt. Our guest today is Kevin Holm-Hudson.
Singer songwriter and covers revivalist, Dr. Kevin Holm-Hudson holds a genuine earned doctoral degree in music composition, which he has frittered away ever since writing songs instead of symphonies. By day, he is Professor of Music Theory at the University of Kentucky. Evenings and weekends, he writes and sings songs about desperate characters, disasters, dogs, and Pablo Casals, both as a solo performer and with his band, Dr. Kevin Holm-Hudson and the Adjuncts.
His eclectic musical [00:01:00] style is best described as indie-folk with numerous influences ranging from Americana to psych. His albums have been nominated for Album of the Year in the Lexington Music Awards, Appalachian Arts and Entertainment, or APPY Awards, and the Nashville-based Josie Awards.
His latest album is Travelers Rest, released in February of 2025. Welcome, Kevin, and thanks for joining us.
Kevin: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this.
Carrie: So, before we get started, I wanted to point out that you are also a member of the musical project, Archipelago. And we're grateful to you and Jim Gleason and of course my husband Scott Whiddon for letting us use one of your pieces for the podcast theme music.
So it's nice to have you here on our podcast.
Kevin: I'm delighted. That was such a fun project.
Carrie: Yeah. And that was a project that started in the [00:02:00] pandemic, too. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?
Kevin: Well, I think it was Scott that while we were all just kind of adjusting to the weirdness of the lockdown said, you know, we ought to collaborate on a really weird ambient post-rock album.
And so we all just kind of jumped at the chance. It helped that we all had our own home studios, so we were able to send these kind of half-finished ideas, barely held together sketches, you know, to the others. And the operating principle was, we should be prepared to accept whatever was done to these musical fragments.
So, if we received one of these, we could do basically whatever we wanted to create, to coax a song out of them. And it took some interesting, different turns, and I was very happy with how things turned out.
Carrie: And is that the first time you have collaborated in that sort of way, where you were kind of giving each other freedom to do whatever you wanted, whatever they wanted with the individual pieces?
Kevin: Well, there were all sorts of [00:03:00] unprecedented aspects of the pandemic. I remember in my college days playing in free improvisation groups, you know, so there was some collaboration going there, and since we were all improvising, you had to be accepting of what others were introducing into the mix.
So I wasn't new to that, but the idea of working remotely from our individual studios and just sending wav files of our ideas, you know, so we're dealing with this kind of virtual currency. There wasn't anything that was in person for a long time. In fact, I think the first time we actually got together in person was to do the final mix together.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. This podcast actually came out of the pandemic and trying to figure out ways to serve writers.
Kevin: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: So there have been good things that have come out of it.
Kevin: Flowers in the concrete.
Carrie: Yeah, exactly.
I did also [00:04:00] wanna mention that both the Carnegie Center and the library have offered classes in songwriting before.
You're the first songwriter we've had here on the podcast, but we're excited to branch out into this art form with this episode. So you do write, you know, in academic writing--you have a textbook, you've edited collections, and you have other academic writing. I'm curious, you know, most of the people I think who listen to the podcast are writers.
What connections do you see between writing songs and writing prose?
Kevin: Oh, wow. I guess, well in, in both activities, at least for me, there's staring at the blank page or the unrecorded tape and hoping some inspiration will come along. And then of course, it's not just the inspiration, you have to make a practice of it.
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Kevin: For me, the first thing that comes into a song is the harmonic progression. So that may just take the shape of me noodling at the guitar or at the piano, and almost kind of just getting hypnotic with a particular progression.
And then sometimes the words will follow. So I guess it's similar to I've read about some poets and songwriters who use words just for their assonance, you know, the way that they sound. And not so much for the syntax or the meaning that's necessarily involved. Brian Eno, for example, is famous for doing just that with his lyrics.
And so I guess that would be the prose equivalent or the poetry equivalent of sitting at the guitar and just playing the same progression over and over and finding something that will kind of stick to that.
Carrie: Okay.
Kevin: It takes work to be spontaneous.
Carrie: Yeah, and that's something that I think many of our guests have talked about is the fact that you can't just [00:06:00] expect to be inspired.
You have to make time and devote and sit down and do the thing.
Kevin: Yeah. And one of the things that fascinates me about music when I'm writing is that, and I'm trying to think if there's kind of an equivalence of this in writing. I'm not sure that there is, is that sometimes you can write a song where the words are saying one thing, but the way the song is set, the harmony, the accompanying instruments, you know, the accompaniment may have a way of undercutting whatever the apparent sincerity of the text is.
You know, so the text might be saying something like, oh, I love you, my darling. And the accompaniment is basically saying, don't believe a word of it.
Carrie: Right.
Kevin: And so I guess it's almost like, there's the pop meme about, I think it's Morgan Freeman as the narrator, you know, who comes in and says, "in fact, they did not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [00:07:00] blah." You know? And so that's probably the closest I can think of to a writing scenario.
You know, it's where you're trying to capture duplicity, but duplicity that isn't known to the other characters in any way.
Carrie: I think perhaps for poetry specifically, I think some of that can be sometimes accomplished by the meter or by the, you know, things like alliteration or assonance, which you were talking about, like the sound of the words.
Are they, you know, I think it's possible to work against what the actual words are saying in some ways, in that regard. And I mean, and of course there's irony as well, but yeah, that's an interesting, an extra tool you get in your toolbox, I guess.
Kevin: Right. I'm just, I'm reminded in a way just of one of my favorite singer-songwriters, and that's Randy Newman.
And he had a song called "I Want You to Hurt like I [00:08:00] Do." And he's describing this scenario where he's basically this just this terrible person who's walking out on his family, walking out on his child. His child is crying and asking him why he does it. And of course it's set to this lofty, almost gospel, major key kind of setting.
But when he gets to the chorus. Of course the chorus is, "I just want you to hurt like I do." But at the very end he throws in, "Honest I do. Honest I do." Which is straight outta Sam Cook, and it's just like a twist of the knife.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great example. I remember a long time ago hearing someone say they loved Bluegrass because it was such happy music and just thinking,
have you listened to the lyrics?
Kevin: Right? [Both laugh]
Carrie: Of Bluegrass music? So this is probably different for everyone. You kind of alluded to it a little bit in an earlier answer, and maybe it's different for each song, but do you tend to write the music or the words first? [00:09:00]
Kevin: Oh, it's different for every song, although I'm more likely to come up with the music first then put the words in, and then as I'm revising the words, I'm also making small tweaks to the music.
And so they kind of, they kind of come together in that, that last process. But I usually don't start with a set of lyrics, you know, as an outside text. I think there's that kind of, as I was mentioning before, that kind of subconscious guitar hypnosis for me is usually the first step.
Carrie: Okay. Yeah. What about prompts? Do prompts play a role in your writing process?
Kevin: Sometimes they do. One of my first songs as I was really getting serious about songwriting, one of my first songs was a song called "Iridescent Blue," and the way that that song came about was sort of asking myself what it would be like to write a Grateful Dead song.
And so I had a particular kind of harmonic [00:10:00] palette, I guess as it were, into song and coming up with words that were, you know, a little on the trippy side, you know, that kind of thing. But also with this kind of Americana feel, and by the time I was done, I had to admit to myself that it was nothing like a Grateful Dead song.
You know, it's like you aim for these kind of, I'm gonna write a song in the style of, and then you completely fail at that, but you've succeeded in creating something else.
Carrie: Right.
Kevin: And so I was really happy with how the song came out.
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Kevin: And it's definitely me. I think most people hearing it would not say, oh, that sounds like a Grateful Dead song, unless there's some aspect of it that's pointed out to them.
So that's happened. And I've also had a couple of songs that I've written where the prompt was to, in essence, join a story in mid progress and see where that goes. You know, so I've written a couple of songs that were, that turned out to be murder ballads. You know, when I started [00:11:00] writing the song, it was more of a ballad of a, you know, girl growing up in the country or whatever.
But as the lyrics go on, they get progressively darker, and then there's usually a death involved at the end.
And then I kind of go back and go, I really did not expect that was going to happen.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. [Laughter]
Kevin: And that's happened a couple of times, which is probably an indication of how dark my mind goes sometimes.
Carrie: [Laughter] The first two prompts that you mentioned, those sound very similar to some prompts that writers have given. Our last guest, Fenton Johnson. You know, one of his prompts was to try and copy a writer that you admire, which is very close to trying to write a song in the style of the Grateful Dead.
And of course the one of starting a story in the middle. I mean, that is, that's kind of a narrative prompt. So any writer could use that as well, whether they were writing songs or, you know, literature.
Kevin: Sure, [00:12:00] sure. I was trying to think of another prompt idea. Well, let's keep talking and I'll see if it comes back to me.
Carrie: Okay. Well, Scott told me that you started writing songs very early and you had a good story about that. Do you wanna share that?
Kevin: Yes. I started music lessons, I think, when I was in second grade. And it was one of those things where my music teacher in elementary school noticed that I could, you know, play certain songs by ear, you know, just kind of plunking out at the keyboard.
And so she contacted my mom and said, I, you know, I think that you should look at getting him piano lessons and let me find the right teacher. You know, so basically in third grade, I think it was, I wrote my first song. And it was straight up, I don't know, an eight year old's attempt at Stephen Foster.
You know, there's the reference to like the old folks at home, you know, kind of thing. And in the distance [00:13:00] there's a railroad and the railroad is far, far away. The song was called "Far, Far Away." But what makes this funnier, or at least nerdier, I guess, having written my own song, I wrote it out on staff paper.
I drew five lines for the staff. I wrote my melody on the staff. I think it added up to four beats per measure. You know, the way the melody in four-four probably should. In other words, I had absorbed a lot of what I had learned in my piano lessons. And adopted it to this song. And I look back and I thought, you know, I was a pretty odd kid.
'cause you know, kids make, make up their own songs or whatever, but not many take the time to sit down and write it down. And so anyway, this was also my first published song because the school that I went to, which was like a K through 12 private school, they had this literary magazine that they put out like once a year.
And most of what was in there were, you know, stories and poems and things by high [00:14:00] schoolers, right? And tucked on one page in this literary book is my song with the scrawled out five line staff and you know, anybody could sit down and play my tune. So it's kind of funny, like that was my first published song and it appeared in a literary journal.
Carrie: Well, and that brought you here. [Both laugh]
Kevin: Exactly. It's all full circle.
Carrie: Yeah. That's pretty awesome and awesome that they published that as well, even though it was kind of outside of what they normally did.
Kevin: Yeah. It was the school, I mean, it was the literary journal for the school. So, you know, it wasn't like I sent it in, I don't, you know, to the Atlantic or something.
It was just
Carrie: Oh, well, sure.
Kevin: [Laughter] But it was, you know, my music teacher, I guess thought it would probably be a good thing if it was in there. So.
Carrie: Yeah.
So, you mentioned in your bio that you frittered away your musical composition degree, [Kevin laughs] but obviously you were doing musical composition from a very early [00:15:00] age.
Does, I mean. That must inform your songwriting, that degree, and your study in musical composition
in some way?
Kevin: It does, it does. Sometimes I will, this is another idea for a prompt, actually. Sometimes the prompt for a song is what we might call like a specifically academic kind of concept. So for example, in classical music and also I guess some folk musics, there is a kind of form called a rondeau, which is like an A, B, A, C, A form.
So then if you think of the A as being like a refrain, then your B and your C can be like verses, but they end up being different verses, 'cause it's not just a B and a B prime, but A, B, and a C. So you're actually kind of fusing what might be a verse-chorus form in a song with a form that actually has a bridge or a contrasting middle section.[00:16:00]
So I wrote this song self-consciously with the idea of I wanna write a song that's in a five-part rondeau so that then I can use that in my teaching. You know, so it's, so having looked at, you know, a Mozart example or a Beethoven example or what have you, and oh, and here's another one, and this is in a song I wrote and usually just kind of turns things around for students in the class that, you know, it's a different style, it's a different approach.
And the fact that the teacher that wrote that song is actually playing it for you in the classroom. I like to think that's been one of the more memorable classes I've done.
Carrie: Yeah, that is very cool to be able to do that, to illustrate that concept. But you talking about that, I mean, that sounds very much the way a poet would use like a formal verse
to write a poem within those constraints. It's kind of giving yourself a constraint
Kevin: and I just thought of the other prompt that [00:17:00] had run away from my brain
Carrie: Okay. Great.
Kevin: moments ago. There was a friend of mine, one of my Facebook friends who is another songwriter, and somehow I ended up on her page with this kind of summer songwriting group, and every month during the summer
up until this year, she would send out a particular prompt and all of us in a group would, you know, submit something by the end of the month. Well, one of her prompts was to write a song in a style that you don't usually write. So as I thought about this, I thought, well, one style of music that I don't usually write is 12 bar blues.
I tend to not do anything with the 12 bar blues, or I hadn't done anything with the 12 bar blues. But then I also took it as another step further in thinking of the structure of the lyric. I thought I also haven't written very many sonnets. And so the idea of putting a lyric, you know, a sonnet lyric to a 12 bar blues
seemed about as incongruous as you could get. And the [00:18:00] end result was a song called "Blues for Shakespeare" in which Shakespeare gets totally trashed in a bar and causes trouble. That's, that's the gist
Carrie: That seems like, on point, for Shakespeare. [Laughter]
Kevin: Right. So, so it's just, it's funny to try, you know, I'm working with two different constraints there.
Carrie: Right.
Kevin: I'm working with the form of the sonnet, but I'm also working with the fact that, okay, this has to fit into 12 measures and you have your turnaround at the end of this, and so on.
So, but that was a lot, that was a lot of fun to write.
Carrie: Yeah. Sometimes I find like if I'm having trouble writing something, giving myself another constraint will sometimes
overcome that barrier and allow me to kind of break through.
Kevin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or creating an entirely new starting point. You know, one person that comes to mind for me with that is David Bowie. You know, he never seemed to stay with one persona long enough to actually get entrapped by that [00:19:00] persona.
But by completely changing persona to another identity or what have you. That opened up a whole new set of vistas for him as a songwriter.
Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So do you have any advice for listeners who've never tried songwriting before and would like to try it?
Kevin: Well. Do it! [Both laugh] You know, there are no rules to songwriting.
There are some folks that allow themselves, I think, to maybe get pigeonholed into a particular genre. You know, like if they wanna be, if, if you wanna be a country artist, then you're going to be writing country music. In my own writing, and this is something that makes me probably really difficult to market, you know, along with things like professor writing songs, is the fact that
a lot of my songs just go into completely different stylistic directions. You know, some of my favorite artists are people like Neil Young, who will just kind of switch directions at the drop of a hat and not give anybody any warnings. Like all of a sudden, [00:20:00] oh, he's doing this now. Sometimes in songwriting, there is that sense, I think, of being open to and following the muse.
And the muse can sometimes be really capricious in terms of where you go. So, I would say for one thing, you know, just forget genre. Write music that you like, that you would like to hear, you know? When I was in college, I had a teacher who said something like, new music is that which without you would not exist.
And it took me a long time to think about that. You know, like the idea that, okay, it's not just trying to write some original music and therefore trying to verify that your music is original by having listened to everything that's ever been written on the planet. You know, it's nothing like that.
It's just the idea that the new music you create comes from you. I think that's a positive contribution to the atmosphere, to society, to the planet, you know, to create something where there had been nothing. [00:21:00] And personally for me, and where I'm a little intimidated with the podcast here, is that words for me are really the most difficult thing.
I can just kind of flow with music and if I'm lucky, some words will attach themselves to that music. I think it was Willie Nelson that described songwriting to fishing. You know, you're sitting by the stream and you're hoping that something will catch on your hook, and if it doesn't, you know somebody down the stream is gonna catch it for you.
And so that's okay. So I wish I could be more fluent with my own lyric writing because I often will just kind of carry a fragment around in my book for weeks or months and then eventually that fragment will loan itself to a complete product, but not always.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I think that's true for other writers as well.
You know, that's one of the reasons I think it's important to keep a journal so you can write those little fragments down and maybe save them for something later. [00:22:00]
Kevin: And also it's good to, well, not to eavesdrop, but to listen in on the conversations around you. You know, be mindful, be aware of things that are being said around you, not necessarily to you, but just fragments of conversation you pick up on.
There was a cartoonist for the Village Voice for many years named Stan Mack, and he wrote these Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies, and he would just walk the streets of Manhattan, overhear these snippets of conversation and arrange them into these conversations he supposedly had heard on the street, but were just rich in this kind of surrealism because you know, they were
all sorts of fragments from different conversations that were blended together. And similarly, and this is another example of a song that you don't know how it's going to end, but I started a song from something that I heard somebody say as I sat down next to a friend at a bar. They said something like, "I'll be drinking more than talking."
And I thought that's a great opening line for a song right there.
Carrie: Yeah, that is good.
Kevin: Would you like me to tell you how it [00:23:00] ended? [Laughter]
At the end, the protagonist who would rather rather be drinking than talking is Eeyore, and eventually what happens in the song is that some of Eeyore's friends in the hundred acre woods stage a little intervention. And Eeyore is trying to kind of snap himself out of this funk. So I did not think it was gonna go there when I started the song, but by the time I finished the song, that's where it went.
Carrie: Yeah. That's definitely a surprising way to end a song about Eeyore.
Kevin: Yeah. It just, it's like the hundred acre wood reference just kind of comes, finally mentioned in the bridge of the song where it's like, oh, that's what's going on. You know, like it's not revealed at the very beginning.
Carrie: Nice. Well, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your thoughts about songwriting. And I'm sure that no matter what genre people are writing in, they can gather something from [00:24:00] what you've said.
Kevin: Great. Thank you Carrie. And I just wanna remind your listeners that if they're interested in hearing more of my music, my band camp page is kevin-holm-hudson.bandcamp.com.
So the dash is like, I've already got the hyphen between the Holm and the Hudson. That's my hyphenated married name. We just added an extra hyphen after the Kevin for the web address.
Carrie: Right. Okay. And we'll also link to that on our blog as well.
Kevin: Wonderful. Thank you.
Carrie: Thank you for listening to Prompt to Page. To learn more about the Jessamine County Public Library, visit jesspublib.org. Find the Carnegie Center for Literacy and learning at carnegiecenterlex.org. Our music is by Archipelago, an all instrumental musical collaboration between three Lexington-based university [00:25:00] professors.
Find out more about Archipelago: Songs from Quarantine Volumes One and Two at the links on our podcast website.