The song Linda Ronstadt was “amazed” she wrote: “That’s not something I do”
In the 1970s, a lot changed for Linda Ronstadt in a small space of time.
Besides earning a name for herself in the space of what seemed like overnight, she also changed her entire outlook to cope with it all.
At the time, it was the success of Heart Like a Wheel and the next few years that made Ronstadt a name everyone felt compelled to listen to. It didn’t matter that she didn’t write most of her stuff, she was already good enough as a singer and performer to earn respect. And although she got everything she’d ever wanted, having once explained that she “just wanted to be a singer”, it was hard to face the music when she was suddenly being seen as the hottest act on the scene.
It’s easy to pick up on the shift in her attitude in her interviews around this time. Whenever she’d discuss the success of records like Heart, she almost always went in on herself, talking about how “compulsive” she was and how much her anxiety was set off by the heaps of attention. But in just a few short years, everything changed. She was no longer a shy, angelic force but a confident musical genius who captured the entire spirit of the LA music scene.
But Ronstadt was also a different kind of star, having been mentored by bands who shared her Mexican heritage and polished under the guidance of Peter Asher. She had met enough women in the business to know how to hold her own and push back. Emmylou Harris, for one, taught her about the quiet fight. Dolly Parton, on the other hand, taught her about being a bit messier with it.
“I’ve never met anybody so free of neurosis as that person,” Ronstadt told Rolling Stone in 1976.
But Ronstadt barely wrote her own stuff, mostly because she simply wanted to be a singer, but also because while her focus was elsewhere, she never really thought about it. It wasn’t that important to her like it was to other people. She didn’t actively shun the whole idea, but it wasn’t something that made her tick, or something she rushed to do when productivity was low. To her, music was at its most creative when she felt vocally satisfied. Everything else came second.
This is probably why, when discussing Simple Dreams with The Hit Parader in 1978, Ronstadt wasn’t that phased when she was asked about writing more. She’d written two songs for her previous record, Hasten Down the Wind – ‘Lo Siento Mi Vida’ and ‘Try Me Again’ – but she made it clear it wasn’t something to get used to. “Like I’ve said before, I don’t really consider myself a songwriter, I was really amazed I wrote that song,” she said.
Continuing, she added, “That’s not really something that I do. Some people sit down every day and they write, but I don’t do that. I have a few ideas cooking, but my goal in life is not to be a songwriter.”
Although she seemed adamant in shutting the idea down, she did also say it was quite nice to be able to do it when the time feels right. But the main difficulty, for her and probably most of our best songwriters (Joni Mitchell, for instance), is that there also has to be something to say. In Ronstadt’s words, something has to be “intense” enough to write about. If it’s everyday musings, that’s just something she can’t and will never be able to do.
Still, she commends people who can actually do that. Like Paul Simon, whom she praised as being “the most gifted” because he can “write songs outside of his own experience so eloquently”. It’s probably also why she often left the songwriting to people like Warren Zevon and even Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, because in her eyes, they could tell stories and capture feelings in ways she could never.
