Tales of the inexperienced
Some thoughts on songwriting

 

(Published October 31, 2011)

ABOUT ME

I've been writing for 8 something years now, with that and music production as my
main tasks in music. Of course I'm still doing live and studio gigs as a bassplayer,
guitarist or pedal-steeler and since my serious diving into songwriting, as a
performing songwriter as well.

I've had the pleasure of co-writing with incredible songwriters both from here and
abroad,
and added stuff to my toolbox with each and ev'ry one of them. Several of
those songs has
been recorded and released, and there's even a fine little number 1
among them.

ABOUT THIS


I'll take this opportunity to share a few thoughts about what actually works for me
when
listening and writing, as well as what doesn't. You might disagree
wholeheartedly with me,
and you're by all means entitled to. This is not a statement
of right and wrong, of course
unless you make the choice to see it as one or the
other. I wont go too much into the nuts
and bolts of what I consider good
songwriting, as this is not to be perceived as a lesson or a sermon, and of course
"My Way" isn't the only way to do it. Just some thoughts.

SOME BACKGROUND

Since I've long grown out of the typical adolescent BS of always knowing evry'thing
better,
I consider myself very happy and fortunate to somehow have returned to
some basic values,
mainly taught to me by my late Daddy (God bless his soul).

My Dad wasn't a songwriter or musician, but a machinist mainly in the field of
hydraulics. Besides that he was a skilled handyman, at almost anything, and a fly
fisherman, crafting a
lot of his own equipment for this hobby of his.
One of those things I learned was, that to improve in whatever you are doing, it's a
great
idea to develop a keen sense of when to shut up, silence the ego, and listen
carefully when people who are more proficient or experienced speak. Simply in order
to improve your
awareness and quickly gain some healthy routines to start from, but
also to actually keep
improving and learning.

Through this I'm happy to say, that even I started pretty late in life as a dedicated
songwriter, I today possess a level of skill within the songwriting craft, that allows
me
to simply sit down and write a song about almost anything, whenever I choose
to. I don't
need to be particularly "inspired" or "haunted by the muse" or whatever all
the artists
loves to name it, 'cause what I realized is plain and simple, that if you
show up and open
your mind for what's coming, things will eventually happen.
History shows, that sometimes
really good stuff actually does.

Through my long musical past, mainly as sideman, I realized many years ago, that
you'll get
better results if you show up in order to serve the song, than you'll get if
you try to
force the song to serve you. It's actually pretty simple, and goes for the
songwriting
process as well.

THE INEXPERIENCED

In my past I've had a couple of encounters, as co-writer and as producer, that really
made
it so clear to me how better NOT to go about it, if you want to reserve any
hopes of
achieving even a limited amount of lasting success and development.

For some funny reason both co-players in those following two small farces were
women in
their early 20'es.

One co-writing situation basically amounted to my co-writer sitting on a couch
without
really trying to contribute to the process, though I did my best to draw her
in (while
working to actually write a song as well.)

The only thing I managed to finally get from her was, that she felt so comfortable
and set
in her ways, about how she'd like to be perceived and how she wanted to do
her thing, that
she wasn't really able to contribute anything to the writing.

Wow! Isn't that great? 20 years of age and already totally self assured about her act
;-)

The incitement to maybe write a song for SOMEONE ELSE never really dawned on her.
Personally I'm doing exactly that all the time, because to me songs is what it's
about. I do not perform all my own songs and co-writes, 'cause of course I'll have to
take into account
what suits me as a performer. If I didn't do it like this my pallette
of styles would be pretty limited I'm afraid. I
wouldn't write that many songs, thereby losing valuable training, wouldn't meet interesting and skilled co-writers to learn from....the list goes on and on.

To be fair and honest the aforementioned young woman now has an act going with
another girl
approximately the same age. They have gained some kind of reputation,
for reasons that, I'm
afraid, has really not that much to do with music and will
probably, like so many before
them, only last until that generation of girls listening to it has grown into adulthood. Good songs live forever. People dont.

Anyway I think this example shows the profound difference between a performing
songwriter,
and what I'll regard as a "songwriting performer". The question people
could ask themselves
is, if they're getting up there performing because they write
those songs (That's basically
how I've come to see myself) or do they write those
songs in order to get up there and be
famous? In my opinion, more often than not, in
the latter case, they'd probably be better served
finding some good songs written by
somebody else. Good songs intended to be just that, and
not written to showcase
them as the new Tori Amos, Lady Gaga or who ever else they're
actually not (or
getting a deal as vocal-artists and have the record company find the songs), and
then get up there and perform. Of course that too would only work, if they actually
managed to find some space to park the ego and for once pull the key for a while.

Another of those happenings unfolded as I was visiting an open-stage night here in
Copenhagen. The girl performing mediocre guitar and pretty introvert, imagery
deprived
songs asked me (apparantly made aware of my doings as a producer by a
common acquaintance
present) if I didn't think that her songs belonged on a record
soon?

I tried to be objective and forgetting about the shortcomings of her guitar playing
and,
most of the time, pretty out of tune vocals. Her songs were mostly revolving
around her
personal life and depressions and stuff, but it was all clear, almost
educational, language
with no imagery to speak of, which to me is very important, at
least if you wanna draw in
people who hasn't made exactly the same experiences as
yourself, or been there with you.

I wont go too much into the conversation as such, but I tried in a kindhearted
manner to
convey to her what I thought she could be doing to improve her songs,
her lyrics and her act as such. The only real reaction I got in return was something
like "But this is how I
write"????

I wont even try to imagine how little I would have improved, had I reacted in a
similar
fashion first time some more experienced writer kindly pointed my attention
towards the
fact, that my song had no real imagery, that only me myself understood
my metaphors, that I
didn't have any hooky chorus (It's actually possible to write
great songs without hooky
choruses, but it helps) and above all, that my last verse
basically constituted a rewrite of the previous one, just in different words ;-)

Of course I handed the girl my calling card, and even offered her free feedback, but
haven't heard anything back ever, and surely wont. I guess she'll find somebody
who'll tell her what she likes to hear, which doesn't really help at all. The bottom line
being, that had her
lyrics been considerably more interesting, I might even have been enthused working on her other shortcomings with her. Proper production can do a lot too. (YES it can! The notorious "the best production is no production" contingent out there has an entire industry to prove them wrong). Above all. Had she been willing to learn and improve, my interest in her would have been considerably higher.

IN MY EXPERIENCE

Ev'rytime somebody works with the aim to express specific self experienced feelings,
or in
the broader sense, subjects that means a lot to them personally, there's always
the danger
that the process ends up being more about themselves than about the
song, unless they've
reached a level of proficiency enabling them to detach
themselves emotionally, sufficiently
to still keep an objective quality controle working
(is it all too implicit? Will uninformed listeners be able to understand what I'm actually talking about here? Am I rejecting some
listeners instead of including them? Those are questions we should better ask ourselves often in the process).

I guess, that what I mentioned above pretty much explains, why I seem to hear
quite many
mediocre to annoying political or "protest" songs, though there aren't
that many of them
these days. Apparantly people often tend to forget surveing the
work objectively because
they perceive themselves as having "a good cause", "the
holy fire" or whatever.

The thing is, to my perception and experience, that this way you'll only achieve a lot
of
patting on your back from peers sharing your viewpoints in the first place, while
your
opponents - your actual target group that is, if you're writing for deeper and
better
reasons than just slandering political opponents and ACTUALLY want to
change the world -
most likely will just tune out, because nobody likes being
preached to, have their
viewpoints dizzed, or being shown the "right" way by
someone pointing fingers at them. They'll probably just discard you as a self
indulgent moron (I would, even I might
otherwise agree with you, but that's because
I'm a songwriter too ;-)

Another thing that'll have me tune out sooner or later are lyrics that appear being
written
with the aim of showing how great the writer is with language, which tends
to end up less
conversational and kinda academic. What's the idea in sounding
intentionally intellectual, apart from boosting your ego on the
costs of your listeners
self-esteem, or plainly sporting your alleged intellectual
superiority? Maybe the
writer targets a specific group of highly educated people in the field of
rhetorics, but
I think it's worth to take into consideration, that if you target specific
groups, you
might turn you back on others, which doesn't exactly boosts the potential for a
numerous audience.

We're not living in the dark ages anymore. Back then you could strike people with
awe by
speaking Latin, because the simple mob wouldn't understand you and,
oppressed by the church, they'd turn the shortcoming of being uneducated against
themselves. Authority was something
else back then.

Today it's in most cases YOUR problem if people dont understand what you're saying.
They
wont strive to understand your songs, but simply turn towards someone else
whos songs they
actually can reflect themselves in, and in my opinion rightfully so.

Of course your music might be so great that your lyrics doesn't matter, but is that
really
something to strive for? Even the best music becomes even better if the lyrical
side is up
to the same high standards. I tend to see those tendencies when some
great instrumentalists
are writing songs. In my opinion it's just as flawed to write a
song with the main aim of
showcasing the writer as a great instrumentalist, as it
would be to do it on any other
short sighted ego-driven basis. It might hit home with
other instrumentalists, but as I
mentioned before, you might leave out the majority if
insisting on catering certain limited
groups.

Skilled vocalists writing songs often have other issues to deal with. Personally I've
never
regarded myself too highly as a vocal artist, a fact that I worked with
personally to have
working with me rather than against.

Any line has to sound good when anybody sings it in my opinion (even me ;-). That
might
ring either true or false to you, but logically I think, that if you're always
striving for
great lines and catchy melodic components, then you'll widen the range
of people actually
able to sing, or hum, along to your song, even without knowing it
too well and no! It
doesn't need to be simple necessarily. Theoretic'ly at least it'll
improve your chances of
leaving this old world with a couple of big hits, or maybe
even an evergreen under your
belt.

Luckily I'm simply not technically able to save a horrible line with a gorgeous
phrasing,
even if I wanted to. I'd have to do the work properly. My dad wouldn't
have welded this nice pedal-drive Go-Cart for me when I was a kid, and then
just
painted it, without sanding off the file marks or removing grease and dirt first either
;-)

I tend to be way more interested in art than in artists I'm afraid, so vocal gymnastics
on
smalltalk added to music, performed by a pair of big boobs and/or long legs,
doesn't really
cut it for me, and doesn't really convey that well through the radio
either, though
admittingly great production might do a lot.

Incredible by the way, especially because of this video-age, how big a business that
has
been built on people inadvertently mixing up sensory inputs which, to serve the
music, in
my opinion, shouldn't really be mixed too carelessly!
To be honest it's my impression, that in general guys my own age are the absolute
worst at
keeping those things apart (there is probably a lot of record-company
excecutives among
those as well, which mirrors what is signed, presented to the
public, hyped and therefore -
sold).

It doesn't sound better, or becomes more well written, because the performing artist
is
young and beatiful.
On the other hand, if someone, no matter who, performs a great song in
a stellar
fashion I will certainly be drawn into it, but the song always comes first, in my
universe, so lesser does it mostly - At least for me.

Ev'rything I've said above is ofcourse of utter irrelevance the moment a
song/performance
combination works so well, that it would be impossible to hear why and on which agenda the song was written. The vocalist will be phrasing with
respect for the melody and vibe of the
song. The guitarist will be laying down a solo
adding to the song, and not just show off his techniques and incredible speed for 8
bars somewhere where it's not called for, etc.
The observations on which the
previous is written are done in situations when I clearly
perceived something NOT to
work of course. There are never any "rules" without exceptions.

WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT

It's all about ambition after all, and for songwriters, performing or not, that's
sometimes
better served by holding back and see which way the song might take in
writing, ESPECIALLY
if we're inexperienced. A good friend and co-writer of mine has
this saying about "letting
the subconcious do the heavy lifting" (Tom Kimmel). Be
open! I might come up with a good
idea in a co-writing situation, but will throw it out
in a heartbeat if my co-writer comes
up with something better. If I still think it's a
good idea, I might park it for later use. I should say though, that I expect the same
the other way around ;-)

On a side note I should mention, that very few of the really big hits through the
times have had just one writer. Most had at least two, but often several more co-
writers.

When performing, and on self manufactured records, credit your co-writers. I've
heard a lot
of excuses for not doing so, mostly going on the assumption that "people
are not interested". Even that might actually be true in a given situation, please
consider the fact, that when
you say nothing people will assume YOU wrote the
song, and you'll inadvertently unrightfully take all credit as your own. On a personal
note I'll defend the viewpoint that charity
starts at home. Credit your co-writer first,
and then go save the planet afterwards.
At least in my universe that plays so much
more in tune than a lot of what I see out there.

Ev'rything that comes up in a co-write is a result of those specific people being in
the
room and being open to what may come, so it's kinda irrelevant to even mention
"who did what".
That goes for the royalty-share too - Even split is the way to go in
my opinion, and if you
dont happen to agree it's fine, but please MAKE THE DEAL IN
ADVANCE.

Dont "get married" to anything you or your co-writers come up with. Getting your
favourite
line placed in a song where it doesn't belong is NOT what it's about. Often
I've seen the
line that actually opened the process being discarded later, because it
didn't belong in the song any longer and that's perfectly fine. The song comes first at
all times.

Write for the song, and there's a small chance you'll end up with something people
will sing 'round campfires (or what we'll have then ;-) in two hundred years.

Write for your ego, and there's a much bigger risk that your songs will just die with
you.

 

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