A Lisbon songwriter talks about his search for a country hit

LEWISTON – Songwriter Jim Flynn placed his hands over his eyes, took a breath and sang.

“I play lots of honky-tonks when the evenin’ sun goes down,” he began, half-speaking the first words of a song he wrote, a song about a guy who’s tired of the anonymity felt by most country artists.

“It’s sort of autobiographical,” said Flynn, a gentle man with thinning gray hair. “This is a guy who’s been busting his butt for years.”

Flynn knows about work. He’s been writing country songs since the early 1960s, when his brother played in a band that performed in the area’s dance halls.

“I’m 68,” he said. “I’ve been at this a long time.”

He still is, spending about four hours each day at his Lisbon home, writing song lyrics on his home computer or picking out chords on his guitar.

It all begins with an image or a single line, such as, “I think it’s time to change my name to Hank.”

A buddy from Ellsworth called him with the line, something from a music store display that showed country legends Hank Williams, Hank Snow and others.

Flynn took the line and improvised, writing down snippets of lyrics without rhyme or meter.

“I just throw it out,” he said.

Then, he began rewriting, using a regular dictionary, a rhyming dictionary and a thesaurus.

“I don’t want my language to sound like anybody else’s,” he said.

The process can go on and on, as he creates verses and complex rhyme schemes.

“It might take a month,” he said. “It might take two weeks.”

Anybody who says it takes less is lying.

“They can say it came to them all at once, writing down the lyrics on a napkin,” he said. “But they don’t tell you how long they were thinking about it before they wrote it down.”

The melody comes along naturally. “It’s simultaneous,” Flynn said.

With the song about Hank, the lyrics created a buoyant tone, one that he mirrored with the music.

Sitting at a desk without his guitar, Flynn sang the first verse, beginning with the honky-tonks and ending with Hank.

At first, he was quiet. But with the last line – about Hank – Flynn sat up and sang out. “I’m not a performer,” he said when he finished.

Other people sing his songs on stage.

Through Maine music groups such as the Pine Tree State Country Music Association he has connected singers, who have performed his songs for years.

Eleven-year-old phenom Brian Wardwell from Limerick and Ken Wentworth of Bangor have both recorded his songs for CDs.

“I’ve had about 50 cuts recorded since 1997,” he said.

And though he’s never had a certified hit, his songs do get heard.

In Europe, where radio stations need not pay rights to songwriters for the songs they play, several of Flynn’s songs have been regulars on what’s known as the Independent Country Music Network. Its members include small country stations from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.

“I think it’s time to change my name to Hank,” sung by Wentworth, was his most popular song ever, hitting the top 100 on the Europe chart for three-and-a-half months earlier this year.

But it has made him no money. And the big record companies seem not to notice.

He hasn’t given up, though.

“I love the challenge of writing a good song,” he said. “I’ll keep going.”

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