This spring, Wesley Stace and poet Paul Muldoon taught a course at Princeton called “How To Write A Song.” The results of the class, along with a song called “Cover” that  Stace and Muldoon wrote together and recorded with members of The Decemberists, Peter Buck, and Scott McCaughey are featured HERE in The New York Times.  Writes Stace:

The students would basically be writing on demand. Was it unrealistic to ask them to delve into emotions on call? Didn’t they have to be spontaneously felt, not summoned for a bit of homework? During the course, students asked if anybody in “the real world” ever sat down to write a song based on, say, Desire (with a capital D). Paul answered: “In the real world, people aren’t required to read “Ulysses” in two weeks, and in fact aren’t required to, and frequently don’t read it at all. But we’re in a university and we can do what we like.”

Listen to “Cover” as well as a song written by students from the course HERE.