The Songwriter’s Way of Thinking
Sunday, August 13th, 2006Is there ever a ‘right time’ to write a song?
So many songwriters have asked me, “can you write whenever
you want?” — well, the answer is a resounding YES. You can
indeed.
But let’s be real, what if your mum was in hospital or
you just went though a divorce.. then what? What if you simply
weren’t in the mood? Well, here’s the secret.
First of all, let’s switch the word ‘writing’ with the word
‘creating’. In theory we are ‘writing a song’, but in
practice we’re actually creating something. Just think about that
for a second. We’re ‘CREATING’ something here.
So if we are creating something, we need to fuel that creativity
with something. We fuel that creativity with INSPIRATION.
Before we even THINK about what to write about, what structure
the song should be, what melody to use, etc, we need inspiration.
I can hear you already… “what if I don’t feel inspired?”,
well this is exactly why you need to ’switch’ your mind.
I can’t even begin to tell you how important this is.
Let me explain — stay with me here…
Here’s a typical a scenario. You wake up early in the morning to
go work, you miss your train and when you get there your boss
gives you a hard time for being late.
Because you’re late, you’re made to work through your lunch hour.
When you do, you eat some crummy old sandwich which makes your
stomach upset. Despite the fact that you’re now not feeling well,
you carry on working — dying for the day to end.
Work is finally over. You get home, and cook yourself some food.
It’s the best meal you’ve had all day. You’re feeling a little
better knowing you can finally relax and watch some TV over a nice
beverage.
But guess what, you’re too tired to write a song. You’ve had such
a mad day, you just can’t be bothered. You don’t know what to
write about. You just don’t feel inspired.
Now here’s where you ’switch’ your mind. Everything that has
happened in your day are a series of events all leading up to
writing a song. How many events can YOU draw inspiration from?
The answer is ALL of them. You can write about your whole
‘bad day’ but the key here is to pick one or two events and
elaborate on them.
For example, we can do something with ‘being late for the
train’ and ‘late for work’. You could structure it in a way were
your verses would be about getting up late, how your breakfast
was burnt, when you left it was pouring with rain and you left
your umbrella, the trains were running late, you were late for
work again.
In fact, that could actually be your hook — ‘I’m Late Again’.
The song can be structured in a way were you are simply stating
how you are always late! (It doesn’t matter whether that’s the
truth or not! It just has to flow well, that’s all).
Songwriters who write constantly understand how to harness the
power of inspiration. The above example was quite a negative day,
but if was the opposite, then you would write about just that,
(ever heard of ‘Lovely Day’ by Bill Withers?).
Structure your song so you are keeping your listener interested
in where your song is taking them next.
More on structure in the next issue…(only available via email)
Sincerely,
Calvin Rele
PS: The above was taken from my online newsletter called
songwritingtipsonline.com. If you would like, you can subscribe for
more tips in the form at the top of this blog.
