Keith Munslow and I drove down to New York last week to be on the radio with Mindy Thomas (well, okay, she was in Washington, and we were in New York). On the way we talked about songwriting and made a list of things we’ve learned over the years. It’s not complete at all, and in no particular order, but here are a few.
1. Do it any way you can – like my mom used to say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”, and I’ll use any approach that might work. Someone speaks a line that sounds good, or has a deeper significance, and that might be what the song is built on. My song “I Wanna Play” came from an insistent third grader who wanted in on the playground game. Or not a spoken line, but an idea you want to talk about or story you want to tell. Or a melodic line – some little bit of melody you find yourself humming. Or just a rhythm track. Paul Simon said that with “Graceland” he approached songwriting in a completely different way than he ever had, using rhythms instead of melody or chord progressions. I figure a good songwriter has all those tricks in his/her bag.
2. Carry a notebook, because you’ll forget.
3.For Pete’s sake, don’t edit yourself before you’ve started. Tell the little voice in you that says you’re an idiot to go away while working on the song. Yes, your idea is a stupid one. So what? The heart of creativity is about wandering around in a non-juried space where you’re allowed to make connections or leaps of logic that don’t apparently make sense. If your critical mind is hanging around when you start, you’ll never get started. Tell it to shut up.
4. Create more than you think you’ll need – you can edit later. I usually write seven or eight verses of a song, then come back to three or four, sometimes combining. I read somewhere Dylan would write way too many verses, because he couldn’t help himself. So volume counts. And then….
5. Editing does have a place, and like they say, you’ll have to kill your babies. I often have a verse or phrase that I absolutely love, but it doesn’t fit in with the song. If I keep it it’s just an indulgence.
6.A lot of creative work gets done when you’re doing something else – approaching something obliquely often opens up a new avenue (again, the small minded internal critic isn’t paying attention). My friend Jon Campbell, a great songwriter, says he keeps the radio off in his car and makes up a lot of songs while he’s driving. He figures out the chords later. Folding laundry. Walking the dog. And of course, the shower, where I am often a genius, if I can remember what I was thinking when I get out.
7. The rhythm of a line is at least as important as any rhyming going on. When I work with songwriters, I often find them struggling with the line scanning – and it HAS to scan well, so it can sing well. Alliteration helps with making a good line to sing, too. So don’t ignore the awkward phrase that’s hard to get out of your mouth – you’ve got to fix it.
8. Stand on someone else’s shoulders. All songwriters refer back to other songs and songwriters in their work. Like Woody Guthrie said, “He stole from me, I stole from everyone.” And Elvis Costello, one of our best, regularly cops styles, hooks, and rhythms from other people’s songs. So try on someone else’s hat. I went to see Ray Davies last month in Chicago, and I was very struck by his chameleon-like abilities as a songwriter – this is a Stones song, this is a Beatles song, this song borrows from Brian Wilson, this is a disco song. Of course, they’re all his songs. One of my better moments as a songwriter was taking a lando rhythm from Afro-Peruvian music and wedding it to a chord progression from Marshall Crenshaw. The lyrics made it a list song, something I learned from Gershwin and Porter – “Everything is Music” is mine, but I used everything I had.
Just a bunch of ideas – what are yours?
That’s a great list, Bill. I think I’ve ignored all of those suggestions at one time or another, to my later regret. Here’s an addition: Don’t keep trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. Sometimes a great verse or chorus will just pop into my head, and I’ll think “This is a great start to build a song around,” but the rest of the song just doesn’t come. I’ll put it away and pull it out later. Still no muse. At a certain point, its prudent to accept that a haiku is sometimes as good as a sonnet, and that what you got there is a haiku. Move on.
I learned that from Guy Clark who is as pithy as they come. Like Gamble Rogers used to say, “If you work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.”
it’s remarkable how many of the above listed thoughts apply to the visual arts as well ..
I know, Hank. True for writing, painting, whatever. All the same road
At this point, more than a even notebook, I find I am very well served by having a recording device with me at all times. For me, it’s my iPhone. I’ve used it for putting down lyrics, hooks and more … I’ve really done more with it in the last year than I have with a notebook, and that’s saying a lot. Loved your list, Bill. Thanks.
A lot of possibilities, but teaching the old dog is tough. Still, useful
great tips. yes, for me sometimes the song starts with an opening line that I LOVE, it’ll even be the working title! then, after I’ve sung the song for a bit and sculpted it, I come to the bittersweet conclusion that the line doesn’t work and the song isn’t even about what I originally thought it was about! ditching it allows me to catch the wave of the real song that was trying to find me. I see myself as a
song catcher rather than a song writer mostly.
Sometimes when you struggle with a line to no avail, you can break it up into smaller pieces, and like the letters on a Scrabble board, find a new way to piece them back together again. In other words, when you get stuck, jump out of the box! If you were running, walk, if you were flying, drive, find a new approach to the thought.
Darwin claimed to have come up with the Theory of the Evolution of the Species while on one of his regular quiet walks on a nature path near his home. Getting away from it all while listening to your inner voice is always a good idea.
The greatest of these is “Carry a notebook.” With the addendum “Keep paper and pen by your bed.” The fog of awakening can be a fruitful time.
I’ve written some good stuff on a night-stand tissue box.
For me a lot of great songs flow as I am driving my car – and then I remember that it is a good thing to pull over and write ideas down, rather than trying to write, drive, spell and such while hanging on to the steering wheel with a napkin in hand.
Ok – so then I pull off the road. Where is that pen? Where is that bleeping #@04?X
pen?.. Did it fall on the floor of the passenger seat?
I need my glasses to find the stupid pen… Where are my glasses?! I just had them…Agh!
Yes! Here’s my glasses….and there’s my pen!
Ok, what was that great line?
How did it go?…Oh shit….
Anna –
I most hate the little space between the seat and the middle console. That’s where my whole life is.
B.
When I have a lyrical idea I like, it usually sings to me. Speech is musical. On the other hand, if I have a melody, I almost never come up with words for it. That’s when I collaborate!
Hi Bill, this is a great list! Morgan and I listened to yourself and Keith on Mindy’s show last week while out on the road, and it was great to hear you saying this stuff to kids who we know from our own experience with Gustafer are already playing and writing – we could hear how inspiring it was for them all to hear your advice. We loved it too – good job!!
Thanks, Rachel. Hi to Morgan, too, and how we meet soon.
would love to meet soon!
I hate it when I can’t write anything for a long time. I beat myself up for that. I think the last song I wrote was truly the LAST SONG I’D EVER WRITE!!
But I remind myself of one thing I learned from a watercolor teacher when I went to art school back in the Dark Ages, and I wasn’t coming up with any ideas for painting. I think it also holds true for any creative field. He said: “Even the most fertile field has to lie fallow sometimes.” I like the truth of it, and I like the alliteration.
Great article! My I-phone has become my new best songwriting friend. Notes, voice memos, even digital recording studios all exist in my back pocket now – anytime – any place. Unreal!! I think one good point to consider is that for so long, we’ve been conditioned by commercial radio format to think that a song had to fall in at 3 minutes and fit a formulaic template every single time. Although this method works well, I think it’s time for all songwriters to push the envelope. Your song can be short, very long, atypical of commercial structure, etc…
The reality is, most music won’t make it to the radio anyway, so free yourself up and create the most beautiful and stimulating sounds…period!
Thanks for your comments – and sorry for delay – I’m kind of lost on the road right now. Right radio has defined songs, and there is soo much music now of all varieties – thought 2 minutes and 51 seconds is a work of art, so is Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, or something else. A song needs to be as long as it needs to be – the question is – where does it get heard?